By Babajide Komolafe The need to support youth entrepreneurship as a solution to the increasing challenge of unemployment in Nigeria is reflected in the success story of Paystack, a fintech start-up company founded in 2016 by two Nigerian youths-Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade. The company which became part of Stripe, an American technology company through a $200 million acquisition deal, currently employs more than 70 people in Lagos. Like Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade, many Nigerian youths, driven by the need to escape the hash realities and unemployment in the country, are embracing entrepreneurship and venturing into different sectors of the economy. READ ALSOBuhari seeks Senate’s confirmation of Gen Yahaya as new COAS While some like the Paystack founders have recorded outstanding success, most are struggling, due to several factors including poor power supply, low capacity and inability to access funding to scale up their businesses.
James Emejo in Abuja
National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday decried the attempt by bandits and terrorists to ruin the country’s food security programme. Tinubu said by attacking agricultural producers across the country, the bandits, “Seek not only to ravage the agricultural community, but to visit misery on the rest of the nation through food scarcity and food costs that poor people can simply not afford”.
The former Lagos State governor spoke shortly after the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, honoured him with an honorary doctorate degree. Others awarded the honorary doctorate degree were Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Timipre Sylva; Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari; and agro-industrialist and politician, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd). They were honoured for their contributions
James Emejo in Abuja
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, yesterday challenged the university community to rise to the occasion and develop breakthrough solutions especially in seeds production to improve agricultural yields.
He said the CBN would on its part, provide a commercial outlook to research breakthroughs on improved seeds by ensuring a guaranteed market by encouraging farmers to adopt those seeds under the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP).
Emefiele, while delivering the guest lecture, titled, ‘Jump Starting the Agricultural Revolution: the CBN Experience’, at the combined convocation of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, noted that the seed industry was a multi-billion dollars investment, offering a low hanging fruit in a potential collaborative effort between the CBN and the university community.
James Emejo in Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has facilitated N122.63 billion as loans to farmers under its
Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), since inception till December 2020, the Chairman of ACGSF Board, Mr. Stephen Okon, has said.
Okon told journalists yesterday in Abuja at the National Awards Ceremony for the Best Farmer of the Year 2020 under the ACGSF, that 30,267 of these loans, worth N4.32 billion, were guaranteed last year.
Also, CBN Director, Development Finance Department, Mr. Yusuf Yila, stated that the apex bank is working to provide farmers with some Brazilian seed variety to boost rice production from the current four million metric tonnes per hectare to about nine million metric tonnes per hectare.