Zulum rewards Almajiri with N5m for fabricating farm machine

Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum, has rewarded a 25-year-old Almajiri, Laminu Mohammed, with N5 million for fabricating a hand-held plough in Maiduguri.

The financial reward was to support the young man’s ingenuity in local fabrication of affordable agricultural equipment.

Excited by the innovation, recently in Maiduguri, the governor said: “The local fabrication of hand-held plough to till farmlands could boost farmers’ productivity and income to fight poverty and unemployment.”

According to Zulum, conventional ploughs are usually attached to tractors or other vehicles and dragged to prepare farmlands for cropping.

He noted that Mohammed had never attended any formal school, apart from the traditional Quranic education, known as Tsangaya, in the Almajiri system of the North.

In fabricating the plough, Zulum said that components of a Lister engine used for pumping water were coupled to construct a plough that works like the tractor-pulled industrial equipment.

The governor, an engineer by profession, invited Mohammed for technical interaction, and the Almajiri proved his engineering skills.

He said the reward was to inspire the ‘unschooled engineer’ to produce more ploughs and other agricultural machinery for farmers in the state.