Governor says Nigerian 'agriculture can create 25 million jobs in five years'

The governor of northern Nigerian state, Kwara, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, has urged the Federal Government to make supporting the development of agribusiness in the country more of a priority

Kwara State governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed. (Image source: Facebook)

He added that if certain financial policies were created and adopted, the sector could generate up to 25mn jobs within the next five years.

"Apart from reviving the comatose industries in the North, transforming the lives of rural dwellers, reducing youth restiveness, an agro-based based economy has the inherent potential to improve the country's foreign earnings for the much needed infrastructure development," Ahmed was quoted as saying by the Daily Trust.

The comments were made during an Aid and Development Roundtable in Washington DC, US.

Ahmed said that Nigeria's agribusiness economy was being constrained largely by an unfavourable financial policy that did not take into account the gestation periods of agricultural produce. 

He called on Northern Governors and the Federal Government to collaborate and devise the right policies to drive agricultural development and urged aid agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to actively assist these efforts.