By George Mgbeleke<\/p>\n
The North East Senate caucus has raised alarm over its exclusion from the Special Industrial Processing zone of the country.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a Media briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Chairman of the Caucus, Senator Danjuma Goje lamented the North-East geopolitical zone was excluded in the special Industrial Processing zone despite its enormous agricultural potential cutting across all sector value chains.<\/p>\n
He appealed for the immediate inclusion of the North East Geo-political Zone in the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ).<\/p>\n
According to him,”This is not only for fairness and inclusivity but for the actualisation of the lofty ideals of the present administration to industrialise Nigeria\u2019s agricultural sector and create sustainable jobs in the country.”<\/p>\n
Continuing he said,”Seven states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been selected for the programme. The North West and South West have two processing zones each – Kaduna, Kano, Ogun, and Oyo states. The South South, South East and North Central have one processing zone each.<\/p>\n
“Despite its enormous agricultural potential, the North East is conspicuously missing from the list of states allocated the processing zones.<\/p>\n
“SAPZs aim to transform Nigeria\u2019s agriculture landscape through innovation, private-sector investments, and strategic public partnerships.<\/p>\n
The zones are designed to create agro-industrial hubs that integrate farmers with processors, reduce post-harvest losses and expand rural economic opportunities.”<\/p>\n
Goje further added,”Geographically, the North East is the largest geopolitical zone in the nation, covering nearly one-third of Nigeria’s total area of 272,451 km2 (105,194sq mi). Our potential in all aspects of the agricultural sector cannot be overemphasised.<\/p>\n
“Our region, the North East, is known for its enormous livestock and crop growth, contributing significantly to our country’s economic well-being and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).<\/p>\n
“It is against this backdrop that we are extremely worried that our zone is excluded from the SAPZ programme, regarded as a \u201cpresidential priority project\u201d and a direct response to the longstanding challenges facing Nigeria\u2019s agricultural value chain, including poor infrastructure, limited access to markets, and low-value addition.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The North East Senate caucus has raised alarm over its exclusion from the Special Industrial Processing zone of the country. Speaking at a Media briefing in Abuja on Thursday, Chairman of the Caucus, Senator Danjuma Goje lamented the North-East geopolitical zone was excluded in the special Industrial Processing zone despite its enormous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2178,2177,1615],"class_list":["post-3334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy","tag-agro-industrial","tag-exclusion","tag-processing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3336,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions\/3336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}