As we may recall, I lend my voice to support the cashew farming, production and processing in January this year; when I described that product as our hidden diamond. In that write up, I called on government to support cashew products and its farmers to boost agricultural activities in the state. My opinion was that, our government has no business in band wagoning into rice production where we have low competitive advantage.
Today, the rice processing is not a success story; I stand to be corrected.
I am happy however, that few days ago, the Federal Government has beam it search light to cashew production and processing across Nigeria; promising to build plants in Kogi, Benue, Enugu and Ogun as reported by many National News Papers. So I am indeed happy and I hope our government will take full advantage of this.
We have millions of jobs in cashew business, a listening government should not play with this, in fact I expect the government to as a matter of urgency make plans for the factories before Federal Government comes nocking. I expect the factory to be sited in a strategic location.
For example, between Okabo and Anyigba, there are more than 100 cashew warehouse already existing, huge numbers of trailer loads of this nuts leaves Kogi state on a daily basis. If this company is sited in such areas, the problem of raw materials for the plants is half solved.
I therefore want to call on the state government to be proactive and ensure that we have this plant running as soon as possible. If possible we should begin to help FG lay a foundation because this is a serious business for our people.
Kogi State is yet to benefit from this regime in a manner that we wanted, now that this is coming, we must as stakeholders put heads together and ensure its success for the good of all.
The Government must know that its first responsibility is the people. If our people are not doing well, then government has failed. We must not allow this to happen.
My group, the Kogi Liberation Movement, has in the last few months published a lot of things on Agriculture, Health and Education, as policy drive for our government. I hope this documents would be put to use where necessary to better the life of our people.
– Salihu Adam Jiddah
Founder, Kogi Liberation Movement
