By Meletus EZE
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday inaugurated the Calabar automated rice seed and seedling factory.
The factory was one of the projects inaugurated by the president during his visit to Cross River.During the inauguration, Buhari said he was in Calabar for the second time in three years “to inaugurate another visionary and trail blazing project which was very welcomed and satisfying to him.”
He said when he assumed office as president, his administration launched a zero oil economy road map, which was a way of making Nigeria less dependent on oil and he was glad that Cross River had keyed into the idea.
He added that “our gathering here today is no doubt out of determination woven through precision and a glowing testament to the fact that the policy is working, in fact, this factory speaks loud of our giant strides.”
Buhari also said the factory was targeted at creating employment opportunities for the unemployed and be a veritable platform for income generation for the people of Cross River.
He, therefore, enjoined relevant Federal Government agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to partner with the Cross River Government through Anchor Borrowers Programme in the area of supply of seedlings for farmers.
The Governor of Cross River, Prof. Ben Ayade, gave all the credit to the president, saying the concept of the project was based on his meetings and discussions with the president.
He said “for everything Cross River gives me credit, I give the credit to Mr President, I have always been given unfettered access whenever I went to see the president.”
Ayade added that Nigeria, with five million hectares of paddy soil, could only cultivateless than 1.7 million hectares until the present administration came into power.
He said the aggressive programme on rice revolution by the current administration led toincreased cultivation of more than three million hectares and still rising.
He noted that though the state’s federal allocation was one of the least in the country, the cumulative impact of what the state government did showed that there was a new concept called “intellectual money.”
The governor, however, called on the president to support the state to fully actualise the effort of having the first automated rice seedling factory in Africa.
He said “Mr President, we sincerely need your support for the realisation of this factory, we have done all we can, we can only pass it to the father of the country.This is your property, this is a product of your intellectual acumen.”
