Vice President Kashim Shettima, on Wednesday in Abuja, unveiled the $500 million Niger Delta Agricultural Investment Fund.

Mr Shettima unveiled the fund during the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Summit jointly convened by the Office of the Vice President and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The vice president described the fund as a laudable development for a nation whose foundation was built on an agrarian economy and whose soil paid its bills before the discovery of oil.

According to him, Nigeria cannot afford to take the promise of an agricultural boom for granted.

The vice president noted that while nations survive on many resources, they endure because they can feed themselves.

Mr Shettima said agriculture was not only the foundation of civilisation but also the first guarantee of political stability.

“Before a people raise cities, they must learn to feed them, and before a state earns the loyalty of its citizens, it must secure their daily bread.

“The groundnut pyramids of the North, the cocoa estates of the West, and the palm produce of the East and the Delta financed our earliest schools and hospitals and underwrote the young institutions of a new republic,” he said.

Mr Shettima regretted that the oil boom came with an ease that “dulled the industry of the cutlass”, teaching the country that once fed itself to, instead, “import what its own soil could grow”.

The vice president, however, applauded the Nigerian Delta region for the Agriculture Investment fund Initiative.

“What makes this vision inspiring is that it arises from a region that could have rested on its oil wealth and left feeding the nation to other hands.

“The Niger Delta has instead chosen to return to an identity older than crude itself, for the palm oil of these creeks fuelled the commerce of continents long before the first barrel was drilled.

“It has chosen to transform this region, feed the nation, and attract the world. This is where philosophy must give way to action,” he said.

Mr Shettima explained that the fund was a commercial, returns-driven vehicle spanning the value chain from aquaculture.

“And palm oil to cassava, cocoa, rice, horticulture, marine resources, and livestock. Around it, we coordinate the commitments already pledged by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and our private and commercial financiers. Above both stands the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Council, which I am honoured to chair, with the NDDC as its Secretariat. Beneath it lies a demand-side strategy preparing bankable projects across all nine mandate states.

“On assumption of office in 2023, President Bola Tinubu placed food security among the earliest priorities of his administration. The idea was driven by the understanding that “nations that lose control of their food eventually surrender control of their future. His July 2023 declaration of a state of emergency shifted our national approach from the boardroom to the ground, across production, market stabilisation, and food access.

“This is why mechanisation has been the centrepiece of the drive and why the administration launched the Renewed Hope Agricultural Mechanisation Programme for 10,000 tractors over five years, alongside local assembly plants. And in parallel with the John Deere Tractorisation Programme, the Greener Hope Project, and the Green Imperative Programme,” he further stated.

He implored investors, development partners, and state governors to treat the summit “as the start of an obligation rather than the end of a ceremony”.

Mr Shettima emphasised that “the fund is launched, the commitments are aligned, the council is constituted, and the pipeline awaits your conviction.”

Earlier, the Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, said the current administration places agriculture at the heart of Nigeria’s economic transformation.

“The national regional development policy recognises the potential of every region not just in transforming livelihoods but also in attracting investments and growth.

”Hence, the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment summit is particularly significant in transforming the fortunes of youths and women across the Niger Delta,” he stated.

Mr Momoh urged the private sector and other stakeholders to collaborate and work closely with governments at all levels to achieve objectives outlined for the transformation of all regions.

He noted that government alone would not be able to achieve full transformation of Nigeria’s economy. 

(NAN)