President Muhammadu Buhari has lauded the provision of $538.05m by the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development for the first phase of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones for Nigeria programme.
This was as he said urged his counterparts to allocate at least 10 per cent of their nations’ budgets to agriculture as agreed in the Malabo Declaration of the African Heads of State and Government.
The President who stated this in Senegal said ‘I am pleased with the partnership approach used for Nigeria by the multilateral financing institutions, with the African Development Bank providing $210m, the Islamic Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development providing $310m, and the Government of Nigeria providing $18.05m,” Buhari said in his goodwill message to the Feed Africa Summit of Heads of State and Government in Dakar.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, revealed this in a statement he signed on Wednesday titled ‘How Africa can feed itself, produce surplus for export, by President Buhari.’
Applauding the efforts of the African Development Bank to launch SAPZ, Buhari said ‘‘The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones for Nigeria, which is in the first phase will cover seven States in the Federation.
‘‘These very innovative public-private partnership models will help us to transform the agriculture sector much faster and use it to generate wealth.
‘‘They will also allow our countries to develop integrated infrastructure around our agricultural processes and add value to the production of crops, livestock, and fisheries.’’