Taraba’s Wonder Farm

In the state, it is popularly called the Green House Project. But most of those who visited the site in Jalingo, Taraba State, on Monday evening to witness the ceremonial harvesting of produce by Governor Darius Ishaku (I was one of them) felt that “Wonder Farm “ would have been a more fitting name. Everything about the farm is awe-inspiring. The technology is far ahead of its time in Nigeria. One woman even likened the farm to a student who is too intelligent for the class in which he is. The farm is ahead of every other farm in this country. It is unbelievable that a farm as sophisticated as the Green House project could be in Nigeria. But truth is that, it is in Nigeria, in Jalingo, Taraba State, established by the administration of Governor Ishaku.

The farm, according to Ishaku, is established to address some basic inadequacies in food production in the state and Nigeria.  It is built on technology that is still alien to agriculture in Nigeria. Crops mature four times faster than those grown in the normal farms. That gives the state a huge advantage in the area of accelerating production. They are protected from the reach of pests by well ventilated encasements which allow sunrays and water from a dam constructed as part of the farm project to get to the plant in measured but required quantum. The official harvesting event which was meant to open the feat being achieved on the farm to members of the Taraba State Executive Council and a few members of the public for the first time turned into a question and answer session as they could not believe what their eyes were seeing.

What gave Ishaku the idea of such a farm? And what does he intend to achieve with such a farm built on such a sophisticated technology? These were some of the questions. He said the country’s over-dependence on petroleum was already telling very disastrously on the economy of the nation and the welfare of the citizens. Such a situation calls for the search for a reliable alternative. “Agriculture is the best alternative. It has the potential for generating wealth and creating employment opportunities. This farm is a product of my passion for the two – increased food production and job creation”, he said.

Already, more than 200 young people are working on the farm. This figure will rise to 500 subsequently, according to managers of the farm. Popular crops currently grown on the farm include tomato, pepper, vegetable, lettuce, cucumber and many others. The farm is targeting local and international markets for its products. All visitors to the farm ate as much cucumber as they wanted from the farm’s cold room and took away special packages of it home for their families too.

Barr. Anna Ishaku’s Big Youths Empowerment Package

While Governor Ishaku was harvesting from Taraba’ Wonder Farm, his Wife, Barr. Anna Darius Ishaku was at another location in the state helping to reshape and refocus the future of a set of Taraba youths, using her Hope Afresh Foundation pet project. On Monday, April 10, she launched an entrepreneurial development scheme in which 220 indigenes of the state were selected to participate. They are being taught skills in tailoring, catering and ICT. The 12-week programme is in partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN which will at the end of the programme help in opening channels of financial assistance for participants to set up their own business. It is the first phase of the scheme which is actually targeting 10,000 youths. It is a product of the state First Lady’s passion to give hope to those who may have lost hope of living a successful alive.

Speaking at the flag-off event, the wife of the Governor and chief promoter of the programme advised participants to take the programme seriously and through it take themselves out of the circle of poverty and also help others to come out of it too. The well-equipped Centre for Entrepreneurship and Skills Acquisition Centre of the Taraba State University is the venue for the training programme.

Technical Knockout for DSK

Last week was also the week of another victory in the series of court victories for Governor Ishaku from the litigations that had trailed the 2015 gubernatorial elections in Taraba State. The least consequential of all the cases from one of the least consequential political personalities in the political firmament of the state – David Sabo Kente, was decided at the Supreme Court in Abuja. Some legal experts had labelled that case as “dead on arrival” ahead of its treatment by the court, meaning that it had no chances at all of survival or affecting the position that had already been solidly established by verdicts already delivered on that election previously.

On Friday, April 7, Justice M.D Mohammed, leading a five-member panel of justices of the nation’s apex court – the Supreme Court – gave that case the treatment that it more than deserved. He dismissed it and threw it into the notorious dustbin of legal frivolities, describing it as “lacking merit.” That literally buried that case. It was a fitting treatment for bad and embarrassing legal rubbish. In doing so Justice Mohammed said Kente had no locus standi to challenge the legitimacy of Ishaku’s Peoples Democratic governorship ticket and victory in 2015 election since he had decamped from the party to the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and later to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

He described the appeal brought by Kente challenging the previous rulings in the case at the High Court and the Appeal Court in Yola, all of which went in favour of Ishaku and the PDP, as “incompetent and lacking merit.” He awarded a 200,000 Naira cost each in favour of Ishaku and the PDP.

The judgment, though expected, saw thousands of people trooping to T.Y Danjuma House, the official residence of the Taraba State Governor in Abuja, in an effusive show of support and solidarity for Ishaku who was in the House at the time of the judgement.