By NewsBits
The Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), and a foundation Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has urged President Bola Tinubu to urgently implement the Green Imperative Project (GIP), insisting that it is an agricultural mechanization project in-waiting.
Okechukwu, while commending the President for the unification of the Foreign Exchange Market, however, recalled that the “GIP is a €995 million in-kind agricultural mechanization equipment project initiated by ex-president Buhari in 2018 between Nigeria and Brazil.”.
He also said, “It is a government-to-Government project aimed at acquisition of modern agricultural machineries and installation of agro-processing plants to upgrade smallholder and medium farmers in Nigeria.”.
Okechukwu in a statement made available to NewsBits in Enugu on Thursday, insisted that with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, countries like Nigeria with swats of arable lands can fill the void in the international food market left by Ukraine.
He said, “Methinks GIP will play important role in Dollar supply to stem endless Naira crash, which will get worse if we depend only on Oil revenue.” He further emphasised the vast opportunities to harvest from the GIP with approximate agricultural machinery of 10,000 units of Tractors and 50,000 units of assorted farm implements to be assembled in Nigeria..
He said in addition, the “GIP is designed to have 632 Tractor Service Centers and 142 Agro-Processing Plants, covering the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. Okechukwu said that most importantly the management centers were designed to be managed by private operators..
“There will be also training centers designed to assist subsistence farmers to be self-reliant and owners of the farm implements in the near future. One, therefore, calls on Mr President to urgently jump start the GIP as a Hand-Gun to cushion the shock of endless Naira Crash and the attendant harm to the poor masses.”
