The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has said states in the Northeast were excluded from the first phase of the Staple Crops Agro-Industrial Zone (SAPZ) because of the non-expression of interest by governors in the region.

During an emergency press briefing on Saturday, Kyari explained that the SAPZ is a loan agreement supported by the African Development Bank (AFDB), International Fund for Agriculture (IFAD) and Islamic Development Bank, adding that states were supposed to express interest.

The clarification comes as the members of the National Assembly caucus of the Northeast raised concern over the exclusion of the region from SAPZ, following the launch of SAPZ in Kaduna and Cross River states.

The minister said, “We are glad that they acknowledged the very innovative nature of the SAPZ as a groundbreaking change in the agricultural development agenda and priority of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“The SAPZ program was launched in 2022 based on its conceptual design of Phase 1 in 2019. This project is a Federal Government enabled initiative with subscription by the state governments of the Federation. Therefore, all state governments were expected to individually express interest in the program.

The minister added that for selection process, each state governor was notified in writing to express interest with an attached eligibility criteria that will enable them to participate in phase 1 of the program

“Upon receipt of their expression of interest, a joint team comprising the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Finance, and the Development Finance Institution, in this case the African Development bank, conducted a mission to each of the states to verify the fulfillment of the eligibility criteria as a selection process. This stage got eight states that qualified, namely, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, Imo, Cross River, and FCT.

“However, upon the assumption of office by this administration, we reviewed development potential of this program under the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President and decided that no state will be left behind. Consequently, the Vice President’s first international mission was to the Food System Summit in Rome where he galvanized more funding to enable us take more states. He also embarked on a second mission to the World Food Price meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, USA where he obtained a commitment of 1 billion USD from the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the sole purpose of bringing on board more states.

“Financing arrangement: the SAPZ is a Subsidiary Loan Agreement Program, this means that the federal government onboards the obtained loans to the state for the implementation of the program. Considering this is a loan, it is solely the discretion of the state to participate or not, and we have cases where states have not expressed interest.”

The minister assured that phasing of the project was the overall policy directive of Mr. President to ensure that all states are brought on board in phases, saying as other states see the actuality of this project, they get more interested and therefore express their interest

He disclosed that the Phase 2 of the Program had already commenced, adding that he had personally communicated to all the states that are not in phase 1 to express interest.

Consequently, Kyari hinted that the ministry has received Expression of Interests from 27 States, but only 10 states fully complied with the eligibility criteria, adding that they included three states from the Northeast, namely, Gombe, Borno and Bauchi.

“So, the sweeping statement by the Caucus that the Northeast was completely excluded is not correct. We are also confident that more states will do the needful to fulfill the eligibility criteria to enable us capture them in the second tranche funding of Phase 2,” he said.

The minister, however, urged legislators, especially the Northeast NASS Caucus, to appeal to the governors of Taraba, Yobe and Adamawa in their region to reinvigorate their interest in the program and to ensure they fulfil the eligibility criteria for the second phase.