Vice President Kashim Shettima on Wednesday unveiled a $500 million Niger Delta Agricultural Investment Fund, to restore the nation’s historic role as an agricultural economy and to reduce the country’s dependence on food imports.
Speaking at the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Summit in Abuja, convened by his office and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Shettima described the fund as a market-driven vehicle that will span the agricultural value chain—from aquaculture and palm oil to cassava, cocoa, rice, horticulture, marine resources and livestock.
Stanley Nkwocha, his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications quoted the Vice President in a statement as saying, “This is where philosophy must give way to action.”
Vice President Shettima will oversee the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Council as chairman with the NDDC serving as secretariat.
According to the Vice President, a demand-side strategy has identified bankable projects across the region’s nine mandate states, and that the fund will marshal commitments already pledged by the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and private financiers.
Shettima warned that food security cannot be assumed.
“While nations survive on many resources, they endure because they can feed themselves,” he said, invoking pre-oil agriculture—groundnuts in the north, cocoa in the west and palm in the east and Delta—as the economic underpinnings of early Nigerian schools and hospitals.
He criticized the oil boom for dulling agricultural labour and encouraging imports of staples once grown at home.
The Vice President praised the Niger Delta for pursuing an agricultural strategy rather than relying solely on oil revenue.
“The Niger Delta has chosen to return to an identity older than crude itself,” he said, adding that the region’s palm trade once fuelled international commerce long before oil production.
The Vice President also highlighted the Tinubu administration’s focus on food security since 2023.
He said President Bola Tinubu’s July 2023 state of emergency on food shifted policy from boardroom planning to on-the-ground measures—mechanisation, market stabilisation and improved access.
Shettima cited government mechanisation programmes that include plans for 10,000 tractors, local assembly plants and partnerships with manufacturers such as John Deere, and said those efforts have contributed to substantial price reductions for some staples.
Shettima urged investors, development partners and state governors to view the summit as the beginning of an obligation: “The fund is launched, the commitments are aligned, the council is constituted, and the pipeline awaits your conviction.”
Speakers at the summit described the fund as part of broader regional and national development strategies.
Engineer Abubakar Momoh, Minister of Regional Development said agriculture is central to the current administration’s economic transformation and urged private-sector collaboration, noting government alone cannot drive the change.
Prince Samuel Joseph, chairman of Origin Group, praised the NDDC’s renewed role under President Tinubu, and the NDDC managing director described the summit as the start of a long-term investment partnership.
Chiedu Ebie, chairman of the NDDC governing board, said the Niger Delta must stop being a region of untapped promise.
“Young people deserve opportunities, farmers deserve access to finance, technology, infrastructure and markets,” he said, calling for development that is sustainable, inclusive and measurable.
