* Seeks presidential intervention on stalled Kolmani project
By Chesa Chesa
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja played host to Gombe State Governor and Chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, who discussed with him the food security in the country and the Kolmani oil field project, among others.
Emerging from the closed-door meeting, the Governor commended the President for being on the right track in tackling the challenges facing the country, and expressed Gombe State government’s support for food security initiatives of the Tinubu administration, like cassava production.
Addressed State House correspondents, Inuwa explained that “apart from the 50 per cent discount we granted on the fertilizer price and other initiatives we are implementing to enhance productivity in the agricultural sector to ensure food security, we recently earmarked 500 hectares for cassava cultivation across the state to compliment other crops being produced in large quantity in the state”.
The Governor said his recent visit to Morocco was to seek for partnership and support to improve several critical sectors, most importantly the agricultural sector, so that Gombe, being an agrarian state will see farmers graduate from subsistence into modern technological commercial farming in livestock and crop production.
The Governor also highlighted his administration’s initiatives such as the World Bank-funded Livestock Production and Resilience Support Project, Wawa-Zange Grazing Reserve, modern abattoir and cold-chain vehicles for effective value chain strategies, job creation, and wealth enhancement for farmers and butchers; as well as addressing water scarcity by drawing water from the Kupto River and installing solar-powered electricity, among other facilities.
Responding to a question on the Kolmani Integrated Development Project, the Governor lamented that its lack of progress almost two years after it was flagged off is frustrating, revealing that it was part of the reasons he met with the President.
He said: “the lack of progress on the Kolmani project is really a very unfortunate development. As you said, close to two years now after the foundation laying for an integrated in situ development comprising of 250 thousand capacity refinery, 350 mega watts of power plant and 2000 tons capacity fertiliser plant which was supposed to take off since then, but because I think there are some issues with the NNPC and also the partners that are engaged or developers, those issues really have strangled operation to take off.
“And in fact, it is part of the discussion I had with Mr. President believing that once he steps in may be we will see activities back for the fact that petroleum and gas are under the exclusive list, not much we can do.
“NNPC is the only company that is to handle anything gas or petroleum of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as such presidential intervention which I just came and sought for, will really make the things to turn back and activities will resume on the site as soon as possible.”
Governor Inuwa Yahaya also discussed ongoing efforts to tackle insecurity in Gombe State and the broader northern region, acknowledging the challenges posed by Boko Haram, banditry and other insurgencies while noting that Gombe has been relatively secure compared to other states.
