President Bola Tinubu cut a pitiable sight on Sunday when he addressed the nation, pleading that protesters over hardship in the country should shield swords, as he was confident that better times are around the corner. He gave the impression that his administration was doing a lot of things to ensure that things are done differently now in Nigeria in the interest of the citizens. He told the people that as part of efforts of his administration to battle food insecuirty his government had ordered for tractors which will soon arrive the country and therefore delivered to the needy farmers. He assured farmers across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory of an incentivised distribution of mechanised farm tools imported from the United States of America, Belarus and Brazil to scale up food production.
In the Sunday broadcast, addressing the 10-day protests that have rocked several states, Tinubu said his administration was keen on providing incentives to farmers to increase food production, and make food items available at affordable prices.
This he said is against the backdrop of the earlier suspension of the 150-day import duty on some food commodities to address rising inflation and address the surge in the prices of major staple food items such as rice, maize, beans, and wheat, among others. According to him, “In the past few months, we have also ordered mechanised farming equipment such as tractors and planters, worth billions of Naira from the United States, Belarus, and Brazil. I can confirm to you that the equipment is on the way.
“I have been meeting with our Governors and key Ministers to accelerate food production. We have distributed fertilisers. Our target is to cultivate more than 10 million hectares of land to grow what we eat.”
