Badaru’s re-election, victory for Jigawa farmers – RIFAN

The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) in Jigawa on Monday described the re-election of Governor Mohammed Badaru, the state and the candidate of All the Progressives Congress(APC) as “a victory for farmers”.

Badaru polled 810,933 votes to defeat his closest rival, Alhaji Aminu Ringim of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 288,356 votes in the governorship election in the state.

Chairman of RIFAN in the state Alhaji Adamu Maigoro in Hadejia said that Badaru shared President Muhammadu Buhari’s philosophy of “harnessing our agricultural potential.“

According to him, the effort of the president is aimed at reducing dependency on crude oil.

“The governor believes that if Jigawa utilises its agricultural potential, the state will no longer depend on monthly allocation from the Federal Government,” Maigoro said.

The chairman said the governor’s support for farmers, especially through the Cluster Programme, was immense.

“Under this programme, the governor supported us with irrigation machines, herbicides, loans, fertiliser, improved rice and millet seeds, among others.

“Thousands of farmers were given these inputs and one hectare of land each; each beneficiary is expected to pay back after harvest at a subsidised rate.

“We harvested more than 3 million tonnes of rice in Jigawa in 2018 as a result of this support.

“This is unprecedented and that is why we remain eternally grateful to the governor.”

Maigoro, however, appealed to the state government to expand the Cluster Programme to enable the farmers to increase their productivity.

“I am appealing to the state government to expand the clusters support from 50 hectares to between 80 and 100 hectares in every council.

“If this is done, I assure you more farmers will come on board and our production capacity will increase because more inputs will be provided.”