The North-East Caucus of the National Assembly on Thursday raised concerns over the exclusion of its region from the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones introduced by the Federal Government, saying it was unfair for the country’s biggest livestock hub to be left out of such an initiative.

The caucus, which comprised senators and members of the House of Representatives from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe, also begged President Bola Tinubu to address the issue for the sake of fairness and equity.

They made the appeal at the end of an emergency closed-door meeting held at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja.

PUNCH Online reports that Vice President Kashim Shettima on Tuesday flagged off the construction of Phase 1 of the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones in Kaduna State, declaring it a strategic milestone in Tinubu’s plan to industrialise Nigeria’s agriculture sector and create sustainable jobs for citizens.

The SAPZ is part of a larger national programme with seven states, namely Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Cross River, Imo, Ogun, Oyo states, and the Federal Capital Territory, in the first phase of the project

For a start, $530 million is to be provided by the Federal Government, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development for the programme.

Addressing journalists after the closed-door meeting, the Chairman of the North-East Caucus, Senator Danjuma Goje, expressed shock that despite its enormous agricultural potential, their zone was ‘conspicuously missing’ from the list of states allocated the processing zones.


https://punchng.com/north-east-lawmakers-decry-exclusion-from-sapz-programme/