Interior And Agric Ministries Partner To Secure Agric Investments In Nigeria
The Minister of Interior, Lt Gen (rtd) Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, says that Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) officers would be specially trained to protect investments in Agriculture.
Speaking while inaugurating an Inter-ministerial Security Committee on the Agricultural sector, Gen Dambazau disclosed that the Ministries of Interior, and Agriculture and Rural Development are partnering to come up with a modality on how to secure agricultural investments in the country, through a special department that would be created and domiciled in the NSCDC for the purpose of training officers for the task of securing the ranches and other agricultural investment in the country.
He said that the collaboration between the two ministries would address the menace posed by the activities of cattle rustlers and herdsmen on the agricultural sector of the economy, and charged the committee to come up with a strategy on securing assets in the sector.
The Minister stated that as the country is in the process of diversifying the economy from oil to agriculture, there is therefore the need for the protection of investments in the sector in order to boost investors’ confidence, stressing that this could only be achieved through an implementable strategy on securing the sector.
Earlier, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said that he was in the Ministry to seek the support of the Minister of Interior in addressing the security challenges posed by cattle rustlers and herdsmen in the nation’s agricultural sector, as well as solicit his support before the Ministry of Agriculture creates ranches and grazing reserves in the country.
Chief Ogbeh reasoned that security measures need to be put in place before investors are invited into the agricultural sector of the economy, so as to protect their investments and assets.
In a vote of thanks, the Chairman of the Committee, who is also the Director, Joint Services Department, Mr Noah Auta, said that the Committee would justify the confidence reposed in them by coming up with modalities on how to secure the nation’s agricultural sector.
The membership of the eight-man committee is drawn from Ministries of Interior, and Agriculture and Rural Development.
