KGSG Unveils Confluence Rice
Kogi State has joined the enviable class of rice producing states in the country, as Governor Yahaya Bello unveiled the State owned Confluence Rice in commercial quantity to the people.
While unveiling the Confluence Rice on Saturday in Lokoja, Governor Bello said the agricultural revolution that led to the production of the Confluence Rice was in line with the economic diversification agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
He said the efforts and the agricultural policy of the federal government which the Kogi State Government strived to implement have now given the State the capacity to produce good quantity of rice that would be enough feed the entire country.
Governor Bello said the only thing that helped Nigeria out the mess the past administration created for the country was the decision to be self-sufficient in food production, stressing that the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) government that handed over power to President Buhari mismanaged the economy to recession.
“When President Muhammadu Buhari came on board, he met an empty treasury. He went cap in hand to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to withdraw money and he was told by the Governor that there was no fund. President Buhari asked them about what happened to the money that was made over the years; they said it was expended on the importation of fuel and food.
The President disputed the allusion because more than 90 per cent of Nigerians from the north to the south produce what they consume. In effect, not all Nigerians can afford to buy packaged beef or pepper beans and some of these imported food items. It means what we consume majorly can be produced in Nigeria,” he said.
The Governor said what the President did to salvage the Nigerian economy was to encourage agricultural production in Nigeria, saying it was “the only thing that guarantees food security, jobs and wealth creation.”
He said his government had done well in less than two years in office to have the Confluence Rice launched in the interest of the people of Kogi and the entire nation.
“It means that Kogi markets and markets in the ten states that share boundaries with our state, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) will be flooded with Confluence Rice.
“I don’t need to make much noise in the media; our rice is the best and the cheapest in Nigeria,” he said.
Bello lamented that the efforts of the state in rice production was not felt in the past because agriculture generally was neglected by the PDP governments in both the State and the federal levels.
“In the past, what we produced here in Kogi was bought and taken to Ebonyi, Anambra, Enugu, Lagos and some other states and milled into Lake Rice and all that. Now we are producing our own rice in Kogi because it is our policy to utilize the resources of the State for the benefit our people, especially the downtrodden who cannot afford to buy the agricultural product from the market,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Kogi State Commissioner for Agriculture, Hon Kehinde Oloruntoba commended Governor Bello for developing agriculture in the State, saying the revolution in agriculture under the present administration in the State has never happened since it was created in 1991.
In line with the Governor’s statement, the Hon Commissioner decried that Kogi rice was used by some states to gain national recognition in the past because they had the capacity to buy the product from the state and mill it in their names before supplying it to the Nigeria markets.
Oloruntoba said 50, 000 ton per day milling factory would be commissioned in Yagba West Local Government Area to boost rice production in the State as from the first quarter of 2018.
“It was as if we were not doing anything, because other states were buying our rice at cheaper rates for milling, but today, with the efforts of the Governor, as from the first quarter of next year, we will have the capacity to mill our own rice,” he said.
In his response, the Chief of Staff to the Kogi State Governor, Hon Edward Onoja thanked the Governor for his reforms in the agricultural sector, and for catering for the welfare of the ordinary man in the State.
“Today, the Governor in his magnanimity has ordered that each polling unit in the State to be supplied with 50 bags of 50KG rice as Christmas gift to be shared amongst the voters,” he said.
About Post Author
