Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago, says his ambitious plans for road infrastructure development in the State will make it surpass the efforts of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Works and those of the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
He disclosed this to journalists at the weekend after receiving an award at the Nigeria Excellence Awards in Public Service (NEAPS) held at Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Bago described his agricultural initiatives as “a complete revolution,” detailing plans to establish storage facilities with a capacity of nearly one million tons in every local government area.
To combat post-harvest losses, he said the state is implementing renewable energy storage systems on farms as well as public-private partnership with Dangote Group which has provided 500 40-foot containers to be placed in farm estates for product storage.
Asked at the award meant to him, Bago said: “This is a push to do more. This award was received in favour of Nigerlites, for our deliberate attempt to transform agriculture.
“Niger State has provided itself as a pilot state and we are grateful that both the private sector and the public sector understand exactly what we’re doing. So let me thank Nigerlites for their unwavering support.
“In terms of infrastructure, we have been able to start work on over a 1000 kilometers of road across the state, unprecedented, I can say maybe more than the Federal Ministry of Works. Yes, Governor Wike has been able to commission some roads, we’re not there yet, but once we’re done, we’ll overtake Wike.
“Speaking of storage of agricultural products, he said “definitely, it’s a complete revolution in agriculture and we’re putting up storage facility of almost a million tons in every local government. This is to keep…
“We’re providing renewable energy storage systems so that we can reduce our post harvest losses in some of our farms.
“Again, we have a collaboration with Dangote, where he has given us five hundred 40Ft containers to put in our farm estates so that we can store these products. So a lot of efforts are coming in both private and public sector initiatives are there so don’t worry too much about that.”
