By Amos Tauna
The President of Fertilizer Producers and Suppliers Association of Nigeria, FEPSAN, Thomas Etuh, says Nigerian government through the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI), is working assiduously to fish out perpetrators of fertilizer adulteration in the country.
He explained that so far, some arrests have been made on alleged perpetrators of fertilizer adulteration by the police and those arrested would soon be paraded.
Speaking weekend in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, he said the federal government has set up a target for the Presidential Committee to produce and distribute one million metric tonnes of fertilizer for this current season.
According to the President who was represented by Valentine Nwandu, “One thing we discover when we started this program is that we do not have enough strategic storage facilities and most of the plant are not designed to store finish goods and have very little storage for raw materials.
“The adulteration has not affected any production but it affected the famers as they are at the receiving end because from their little investment, it could be disastrous so we are taking it serious hence the reason we involved the Nigerian police force and other security agencies to bring to book perpetrators of fertilizer adulteration.”
On the commencement of producing fertilizer of soil and crop types, he said, “Now we producing 20-10-10 which happens to be more widely applicable wide range of crops and by next year, we will probably venture into 2 or 3 more areas and then subsequently as blenders acquired the skills and the raw materials are flowing on time, we begin to look into crop and soil specifics.”
Earlier, the Chairman Technical Committee of the PFI and Vice President of the FEPSAN, Saidu G. B. Zakari who spoke on the role of fertilizer dealers/distributors towards ensuring the success of the PFI in Nigeria said, the PFI was conceived by President Muhammadu Buhari in order to address the issues of ensuring that fertilizers was made available to Nigerian farmers at the right time and at affordable costs.
“This followed a meeting President Buhari had with the King of morrocco which is the largest producer of phosphate in the world who agreed to supply Nigeria with MOP and DAP and Nigeria which is now an exporter of UREA will supply the product to local blenders,” he said.
He further disclosed that the PFI had led to the resuscitation of 11 blending plants that were mostly idle before the initiative.
Mr. Zakari urged all stakeholders to put all hands on deck to ensure that the program was successful, adding that, “The success of PFI is the Nigerian success and the success of the Nigerian farmers, it is also the success of fight against hunger and quest for economic growth of the nation.”
One of the recipient of the certificate, Murtala Shehu from Katsina, said the certification would further spur them to discharging their services more effectively.
