THE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar has reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to ensuring food security and the development of agribusinesses as a top priority of the President Tinubu’s administration. The Minister disclosed this during a high-level dialogue session on the theme; “From Food Security to Thriving Agribusiness: The Case for a U.S.-Africa Strategic Agribusiness Partnership, at the ongoing US-Africa Business Summit, holding in Dallas, Texas, on May 7, 2024.
The Minister stated that food security is top on the list of President Tinubu’s eight-point agenda, followed by fighting poverty, growth, job, creation, access to capital, inclusivity, rule of law and fighting corruption. He asserted that 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.
Speaking on the challenges of power and its implications for food security, Tuggar stated that “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the 2023 Electricity Act deregulating electricity generation, transmission and its distribution. 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 utilized 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.”
Equally, Tuggar opined that Nigeria is keen on attracting direct foreign investment to facilitate economic growth and development of the country. He encouraged potential investors in the agriculture value chain seeking for land for investment in the sector to follow the right channels to avoid complications resulting from doing so through the wrong channels. He enthused that the Nigerian Constitution is designed to protect citizens from being disenfranchised by land grabbers, there is a simple but necessary documentation process to protect everyone.
The high-level dialogue session was moderated by Dr. Mima Nedelcovych,Chairman, AfricaGlobal Schaffer, and had the following speakers: H.E. Joseph Boakai, President, Republic ofLiberia, Sylvia J. Megret, President and CEO, ACDI/VOCA, and Farouk Gumel, Group Executive Director, Tropical General Investments Group.
