By Muhammad Amaan
The Nigerian government is committed toward ensuring food security and development of agribusinesses as top priority of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar stated this during the high-level dialogue session of the U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Dallas, Texas.
The Summit is centred on the theme; “From Food Security to Thriving Agribusiness: The Case for U.S.-Africa Strategic Agribusiness Partnership.”
Tuggar said, “Food security is top on the list of Tinubu’s eight-point agenda, followed by fighting poverty, job creation, access to capital, inclusivity, rule of law and fighting corruption.
“The government is focusing on the provision of planting materials and all year-round farming as well as establishing agro processing zones in the country.”
On the challenges of power and implications for food security, Tuggar said that Tinubu had signed the 2023 Electricity Act deregulating electricity generation, transmission and its distribution.
According to him, Nigeria has empowered states, individuals and corporations to generate transmit and distribute power.
“Nigeria sits on 209 trillion cubic feet of gas and we consider gas to be a transition resource to be utilised to tackle our energy challenges.
“At the moment, we are expanding oil and gas pipeline Network, the South-North AKK Project, the East West/Ob/Ob 3 Gas Pipeline Project and many more.
“We are also expanding captive or embedded, solar off-grid, power supply and domestication of photovoltaic panel production.
“I urge you to have a look at NASENI, as well as Sun Africa, which has $2.4 billion U.S funding,” he added.
The minister said Nigeria is keen on attracting direct foreign investment to facilitate economic growth and development of the country.
He urged potential investors in agriculture value chain seeking land for investment to follow right channels and avoid complications resulting from going through wrong channels.
He restated the Nigerian Constitution is designed to protect citizens from being disenfranchised by land grabbers, saying there is simple but necessary documentation process to protect everyone.
The dialogue moderated by Dr Mima Nedelcovych, Chairman, Africa Global Schaffer featured Joseph Boakai, President of Liberia, Sylvia Megret, President / CEO, ACDI/VOCA, Farouk Gumel, Group Executive-Director, Tropical General Investments Group as speakers.
