Senate: National Agricultural Credit Fund to Promote Commercial Agriculture in Nigeria Passed Second Reading

Today, the Nigerian Senate considered for Second Reading ‘A Bill for an Act to establish the National Agricultural Credit Fund to Promote Commercial Agriculture in Nigeria.’ This bill, if passed and signed into law, will address the current lack of legal frameworks that limit funds meant for farming going to actual farmers.

According to the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki: "This Credit Fund will also help ensure that local farmers are provided with implementable business plans and are linked to larger companies that will purchase their products." 

"Furthermore, it will also help in the transition of seeing agriculture as a business, not just a social development program, as there will be clearly spelt out criteria for benefits, and fund administrators to guide the disbursement of the loans."

There was mass abduction of students at Chibok - Fact-finding Committee chairman

TEXT OF THE ADDRESS BY BRIGADIER-GENERAL IBRAHIM A. SABO (rtd), CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENTIAL FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE ON THE ABDUCTION OF CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRLS, AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE COMMITTEE’S REPORT, AT STATE HOUSE, ASO VILLA, ABUJA; ON FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 2014.
Protocol

On the 6th of May, this year, Your Excellency, Mr President, inaugurated a Fact-finding Committee on the mass abduction that took place in the small hours of the 14th of April, 2014, at Government Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State. In defining the mandate of the Committee, Your Excellency’s directive was as clear as crystal. On that occasion, you stated unequivocally that the Committee was neither a judicial, nor an administrative panel of inquiry.

2. Your Excellency also stated that the Committee’s work was not a substitute for on-going efforts by the security and intelligence agencies to secure freedom for the schoolgirls, who were forcibly snatched from their hostels where they resided while writing their West African Senior School Certificate examinations.