Plateau State governor-elect, Caleb Mutfwang has said his government will adopt a pragmatic approach to address poverty in the state, saying food security was a top priority plan for his administration.
He lamented that insecurity has affected farming in the state, adding that the state plans to end insecurity in the state and support farmers by providing subsidies in the agriculture sector.
Mutfwang who stated this yesterday during Channels TV programme Politics Today said he will fund agriculture to address food security challenges confronting the state.
LEADERSHIP reports that Plateau State, despite its richness across geography, agriculture, cosmopolitan nature, the birthing of superstars, minerals, and long history of residing in Nigeria’s hallway of power, the livelihoods of the state’s residents for the past four decades have not been in tandem with expectations. More on the chart below.
As of 2019, more than 2.5 million people (the population in poverty) were unable to spend N521.7 per day on basic needs – food, health, education, housing, transportation, communication, etc
The governor-elect said he plans to attract the youths via mechanised farming adding that Plateau produces almost 90 percent of Irish potatoes consumed in the country.
“We want to maximise that and our vehicle for governance is PPP. We want to engage the private sector.”
Today I can tell you that we have fertile hectares of land. We are already talking with a number of private companies that want to invest in the state.
“We are going to look at how we can improve the value chain. We are going to transform small-scale farming to mechanised farming,” he said.
The Plateau State governor-elect noted that those behind the crises in the state are “foreign mercenaries.”
According to him, the crises are targeted at demarketing the state.
Mutfwang vowed to “deal” headlong with insecurity in the state.
He believes the recent killing in the state is “pure genocide”, adding that some communities have been displaced.
“Sadly, it is in my local government that a lot of people have been killed. One of the things that we promise our people when we were campaigning is that we are going to demonstrate leadership and by that, we are going to take some very tough decisions and we are going to look into the issue very passionately and we are going to confront the issues and come up with solutions.
“Of course, I do not have the magic but by the grace of God together with the people we are going to come up with homegrown solutions to the challenges that confront us. We are going to show the people that we have the political will to take decisions that can move the state forward.
“What has happened yesterday and today will be an injustice to the people that have been killed to call it a crash. This is a pure genocide and I want to address it because one of the things that we promised the people is that we are going to be strong on the rule of law. It does not matter who commits a crime irrespective of where you belong.
“I can tell you that there is still a lot of banditry around Plateau State, this did not start today, it has been going on for years.
“A lot of communities today have been wiped out and I can tell you that the last time we had about 64 communities that have been displaced. They are now in IDP camp and we have the privilege at the governors’ induction forum to talk with our excellency the deputy governor of the United Nations, I told them to look at the IDPs. We have quite a numbers of them who have been living in camps for years. We need to escalate that conversation so that these people can go back to their ancestral lands.
“I’m not the chief executive at the moment but I can assure you that these people are the people that they brought from outside these communities. I do not have the exact number but their identities have been discovered over the years and they have been brought in as foreign mercenaries and they overrun these territories.
“Who is the person who is sponsoring them? What is his aim? Sometimes when you look at it some time it is difficult to disabuse your mind that this is not just about land grabbing. If the communities that have been displaced as I’m talking to you now is not as if they left unoccupied some people are occupying them and so it is difficult to answer those questions about what is the motive of those invaders?”
He said that he is not looking at any opportunity rather the opportunity to serve humanity.
“My appetite for greed has been trimmed and I can assure you that I am not going there for stealing. I am only going there to make sure that Plateau works,” Mutfwang,” he said.
