The Presidency has clarified that President Bola Tinubu accomplished his plan to cultivate 500,000 hectares of land in line with the administration’s food security policy.
The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to President Tinubu, Temitope Ajayi, said this in reaction to criticism of the President’s statement that his administration will collaborate with state governors to cultivate 10 million hectares, in a nationwide broadcast on Sunday.
One of the critics, Oseni Rufai – a journalist with Arise TV – in reaction to the broadcast, accused the President of not fulfilling his earlier promise to cultivate 500,000 hectares of land.
Rufai argued that since the President did not fulfill his promise to cultivate 500,000 hectares of land, he cannot cultivate 10 million hectares.
He further demanded the sack of President Tinubu‘s speech writer.
“President Tinubu’s speech writers must be sacked. He said he will cultivate 500 hectares last year he failed and this year he says he will cultivate 10m hectares. Ask him a man that failed at 500 hectares want to succeed in 10m.,” Rufai wrote on his X handle on Sunday.
In response to Rufai, Ajayi explained that the federal government in collaboration with state governors fulfilled his promise of cultivating more than 500,000 hectares.
Ajayi said, “More than 500k hectares have been cultivated in at least 5 states and Jigawa and Kebbi alone have done 300k of the 500,000 for dry season farming. There is almost no state at the moment that is not working on agriculture. Niger State currently is working on 1 million hectares. The President said the plan and or target is 10m hectares. He was clear in his broadcast speech. He didn’t speak amiss!”