Buhari inaugurates $150m Feed Mill in Kaduna, says ‘my administration creating favourable business environment’

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, commissioned a Poultry Feed Mill worth $150 million in Kaduna State.
The President, who inaugurated the plant located at Chikpiri Gabas Village in Gwagwada area of the North-West state, said it would not only add value to the diversification programme of his administration but would also assist in creating new jobs for youths.
At the ceremony were the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, Minister of Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Solomon Dalung, Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, Kebbi State governor, Atiku Bagudu, Emir of Kano, Mohammed Sanusi, the Emir of Zazzau and others.
Buhari urged investors, both foreign and local, to take advantage of the huge incentives including favourable business environment being created by his administration.
He said they should invest in areas that would complement the employment generation initiative of the Federal Government.
Buhari said: “This project is very important to us. We are determined to encourage those who are coming to invest in Nigeria to invest in areas where our people can get jobs, particularly in the non-extractive industry”.
Considering the importance of the project to his administration’s policies of boosting agriculture, Buhari said he had to reschedule a programme to host the Ghanian President, Nana Kufuor Addo, at the Presidential Villa for two hours to attend the event.
“I had to tell my Ghanaian colleague to delay his visit for about two hours so that I can come and commission this project,”.
The President assured the Olam Group and other investors of his government’s continue support and partnership in several other investments.
el-Rufai thanked Buhari for finding time out of his busy schedule to commission the mill.
The Kaduna governor, who commended Buhari, noted that it was the first public outing by the President since his return from a medical vacation in London.
He said the presence of the President was a rare boost of confidence not only to Olam Group but other investors interested in making huge investments in similar projects in the country.
el-Rufai said the mill was designed to produce 1.6 million day-old chicks weekly and 360,000 metric tonnes of animal feed annually.
He told the gathering that the project would no doubt add value to Nigeria’s quest of achieving food security and economic diversification.
“What we are seeing today did not happen by chance, this is as a result of careful investment promotion that the Kaduna state undertook to attract Olam, a company that was born in Nigeria in 1989 but emigrated to Singapore to become one of the world’s largest agro-business,”.
el-Rufai said the project remained one of the state’s largest single private sector investments which will encourage small farmer holders.