By Aderogba George

The Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Uju-Kennedy Ohanenye, on Thursday in Abuja pledged to empower Hausa/Fulani herders from Adamawa South Senatorial zone.

The Minister said this when some group of people from the zone paid her a courtesy visit.

She promised to empower the people with farming tools and introduce them to plantations of hybrid rice with high yields.

“I will also try to introduce the plantation of hybrid potatoes, cassava, palm oil, and when all these things are done for the people, I don’t think they will have the need to fight.

“Most times, the fight between headers and farmers comes from hunger and suffering and they end up killing themselves.

“I will start with hybrid rice because the good thing about hybrid rice is that when planted over the same size of farmland, it will give you 140 bags while normal rice will provide you 100 bags.

According to her, “this kind of rice will give them more money and I feel that if doors of business opportunities are opened for our people to make money, there will be peace, people will not fight again.

“They will be given rice processing machines that will provide 10 bags per hour, such rice will not have stones, it will not have chaff, it will be clean and it can be parboiled easily.

“They will be introduced to packaging systems to enable them to properly package their rice for export and local consumption,” she said.

Ohanenye said that she has already discussed with the people on how to make some hectares of land available for the business, adding that the people are already her business partners.

She said that the profit from the rice production in large quantities will enable the people to do other businesses and this will promote peace, love and decrease the number of out-of-school children among the people.

“The people have promised to use part of the proceeds from the rice business to get their children back to school.

“My ministry will support their children with scholarship programmes to make sure the children get better education and change their lives’’.

Earlier, Mr Abubakar Bello, who spoke on behalf of the group, said that they were at the minister’s office to register their grievances about some other communities in Adamawa.

He said that the constant crisis between farmers and herders in Adamawa south Senatorial zone had been a matter of concern for the people.

Bello said that the crisis between the warring groups had affected them a lot and brought about loss of lives and many other valuable properties.

“This is why we came to the ministry to lodge our complaints and we thank God that the minister has responded positively and has promised to intervene in our matters.

“We thank the minister for promising to intervene with some empowerment programmes for our people and we have arable land that will enable our people to venture into various businesses that she promised to introduce to us.

“We thank President Bola Tinubu for appointing this kind of woman as the Minister of women affairs. She is not only performing the role of a minister but also promoting unity among different groups,’’ he said. (NAN)