President Bola Tinubu has promised to among other things boost food security in the country in 2024. Tinubu made the promise in his New Year address to Nigerians on Monday. The President stated that the government would cultivate about 500,000 hectares of farmlands to combat hunger in the country. “To ensure constant food supply, security, and affordability, we will step up our plan to cultivate 500,000 hectares of farmlands across the country to grow maize, rice, wheat, millet and other staple crops,” Tinubu said. President Tinubu emphasised that his government launched dry season farming with 120,000 hectares of land in Jigawa State last November under our National Wheat Development Programme. He said the economic aspirations and the material well-being of the poor, the most vulnerable and the working people shall not be neglected.
“It is in this spirit that we are going to implement a new national living wage for our industrious workers this New Year. It is not only good economics to do this, but it is also a morally and politically correct thing to do,” Tinubu said.
He added that in this New Year, his government would race against time to ensure all the fiscal and tax policies reforms it needed to put in place were codified and simplified to ensure the business environment did not destroy value.
Tinubu vowed to fight every obstacle that impedes business competitiveness in Nigeria and that he would not hesitate to remove any clog hindering the path to making Nigeria a destination of choice for local and foreign investments.
The president also said his administration plans to deliver reliable electricity to homes and businesses by speeding up the Siemens Energy Power Project delivery.
He added that in 2024, his government is moving closer to restarting local petroleum products, with Port Harcourt Refinery and Dangote Refinery coming on stream.
“Having laid the groundwork of our economic recovery plans within the last seven months of 2023, we are now poised to accelerate the pace of our service delivery across sectors.
“Just this past December, during COP28 in Dubai, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and I agreed and committed to a new deal to speed up the delivery of the Siemens Energy power project that will ultimately deliver a reliable supply of electricity to our homes and businesses under the Presidential Power Initiative which began in 2018.
“Other power installation projects to strengthen the reliability of our transmission lines and optimise the integrity of our National grid are ongoing across the country.
“My administration recognises that no meaningful economic transformation can happen without a steady electricity supply. In 2024, we are moving further in our quest to restart local refining of petroleum products with Port Harcourt Refinery and the Dangote Refinery, which shall fully come on stream”, he said.
