Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari will later this month visit the state to commission a number of industries built by his administration.
The governor made the disclosure in Calabar recently.
Ayade has consistently maintained that the key trust of his administration is the rapid Industrialisation of the state as well as building of socio- economic infrastructural projects.
President Buhari’s February visit to Cross River will be the third since taking office in 2015 in connection with the governor’s projects.
Few weeks after assuming office in 2015 the President visited Cross River to perform the groundbreaking of the 274 kilometre Superhighway highway linking the state with the Northern parts of the country.
President Buhari was again in Cross River in June 2018 to commission the multi-billion Naira automated Calabar Rice seeds and seedlings factory built by the Ayade administration.
Professor Ayade on the President’s impending third visit to the state, revealed that the president will “commission the Cala Chika, a frozen chicken factory which processes 24,000 birds per day, he is commissioning the feed mill, he is commissioning the instant noodles factory which is one of the biggest noodles factories in Nigeria. In addition, he is also going to commission the fertilizer plant.”
The Cross River state number one citizen further disclosed that while in the state, the president will also flag off a new Agro- economic empowerment scheme for the Youths, known as G-Money or Green Money
According to the governor, his administration, through G-Money, seeks to make 1,000 youths millionaires in the first instance.
His words: ” In addition, he (President Buhari) is also flagging off G money. G money is a programme for the empowerment of the youths and creating a value chain in agriculture through a beneficiation process that allows young men to hold plots of land and government helps them in the land clearing and processing, so that the industries can now buy back the raw materials from them as feed stock. It is essentially the process of creating a concentric cycle of economy where young people go into farming, generate produce, produce is processed, taken by industries, industries process them into semi and finished products, sell in the market, go back to people and buy.”
Giving further insight into how the programme will work, he said: “G-Money provides direct cash for young people who have never seen a million Naira in their life. They are given a million Naira as take off grant, they are given five to 10 plots of land and then they are made to nurse their crops depending on their local government of origin and the crops suitable for their local government. It moves from cassava, from fruits syrup, it goes into blended seed for massage oil and for cancer treatment, it goes even up to rice for the rice milling industry, soya beans as well as maize for feed mill.
“ So, almost every single produce, every single crop has it’s ultimate aim. Cocoa for example, cocoa processing results into chocolates. All these factories are in place but now you need the raw materials. The young people are being brought under G Money which is Green Money.
“This will be the first time they are becoming millionaires because they are given a million Naira take off grant with land and land clearing support services. Also attached are tractorisatiin and mechanization support services. We will be looking at close to 2000 young people in the course of the year.”
