Borno bans fertiliser sale in markets

The Borno government has announced a ban on the sale of fertiliser in markets across the state to check the diversion of the commodity by officials.

The deputy governor of the state, Mustapha Zanna, announced the ban on Sunday at a ceremony to launch sale of fertilisers for this year’s cropping season in Biu, headquarters of the Biu Local Government Area.

Zanna explained that the goal of the ban was to ensure that government’s fertilisers were not diverted to the black market.

He said that government had directed law enforcement agents to ensure strict compliance with the order.

“Government will no longer tolerate diversion of fertiliser to the black market as the practice had prevented genuine farmers from getting the commodity.

“Security agents should arrest anybody found selling fertiliser in the black market as it is a crime”.

He said that government had devised a new system of fertiliser distribution to ensure that the commodity was received by farmers at the grassroots.

“Under the new distribution system, each ward in every local government area will be allocated a certain number of fertilisers.

“We are going to adhere strictly to this system to ensure that fertilisers are not diverted at the distribution points”.

He said that government had procured about one billion naira worth of fertilisers for distribution to farmers at 50 percent subsidy.

“We have procured 10,000 metric tons of fertilisers for distribution to farmers for the farming season. This is in addition to the remaining stock for last year’s season”.

He said that a 50kg bag of NPK fertiliser would be sold at N2,500 while a 50kg bag of urea fertiliser would go for N2,400.

Zanna directed officials of the state’s ministries of agriculture and local government affairs to monitor the distribution of the commodity to farmers.

Also speaking, the Commissioner of agriculture, Usman Zanna, said that government had procured improved seed varieties and chemicals worth N37 million for distribution to farmers for free.

“Highly improved seed varieties and agro-chemicals worth N37 million have been procured for distribution to farmers for free”, Zanna said.