Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party on Sunday said the much feared Sambisa forest will be turned into agricultural land to aid production if elected as President.
The former Anambra State governor who stated this while addressing supporters in Kano State during his presidential campaign also promised to secure and free the nation from parallel government by criminals.
He said, “I promise to secure and protect the people of Nigeria. We will ensure that the enemy and criminals are not stronger than the government. We will have one government. And they will not have space in it. We will secure Nigerians. We will unite Nigeria.”
While promising to convert the Sambisa forest to agricultural land and turn the country from a consumption nation to production nation as well as boost its export, he said “Nigeria is not producing anything. They tell you the rate of exchange is N700 to this, it is not true, when we stop stealing it will come down.
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“We use to export before but today we are hungry. How can we be hungry? We have the land. The uncultivated land in the north is what I want to cultivate.
“They said the Sambisa forest is our problem because there is a problem in Borno State, no we will convert it to agricultural land. The Sambisa forest is 60,000 square kilometres of land, Israel is 22.1 square kilometres, so the Sambisa forest is two times size of Israel, we cannot allow it to be like that. It won’t cause trouble for us instead it will be a source of production for us. We can no longer continue. The total export of Nigeria last year, a country of 200 million living on 923,000 square kilometres is 18.9 trillion, if you convert it by 650 is about 30 billion. We cannot take it. Nigeria will increase in export, we will turn this place from agriculture to industrialization and export.
He also said he has what it takes to lead the North out of poverty.
“Let me assure you that I will solve the problem of the North. I will take them out of poverty. I know what to do with the mass uncultivated lands in the North.
“Kano you see today is a ghost of what Kano used to be. Kano has now become a place you breed hunger and poverty. We want to move the country from consumption to production,” Obi said.
