By Maryam Garba Hassan Federal Commissioner for Refugees Migration and Internally Displaced Persons, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk has said Nigeria has the fifth largest number of citizens crossing to Europe and the highest number of irregular migrants flow through the Agadez route. She said the recent discovery of dead bodies of some Nigerian women at the bank of the Mediterranean Sea calls for urgent need to address the issue of irregular migration. The Commissioner said this yesterday in Abuja when she led her management team on a courtesy call to the head office of the National Orientation Agency NOA. Farouk said the purpose of the courtesy call is to explore areas of partnership and sensitization with the agency and to see how it can educate Nigerians on the danger of migration journeys to Europe where some of them lose their lives. It is also to inform the Director General of NOA about the forth coming International Migrants Day on the 18th of December. She said this year the National Migration Dialogue would focus on Irregular Migration. She said this year’s theme is as a result of the increasing number of many young Nigerians who continue to embark on dangerous journeys though the deserts and the Mediterranean to escape perceived hardships at home.

From Mika’il Tsoho, Dutse

In an effort to support farmers and small scales businesses, the Jigawa state government has earmarked the sum of N500 million in 2018 fiscal year for establishment of Micro-finance banks across the state.
The state’s Deputy Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia dropped the hint while delivering his speeche yesterday at a one- day Public Private Dialogue on Ease of Doing Business in Jigawa state.
He said, when the financial institutes had been established they will not entertain government activities. “It would be purely for agriculture and trade businesses.
Hadejia explained there is plenty business opportunities in the state especially agricultural production, such as Sesame, Gum Arabic, livestocks etc for domestic and export purposes.
According to him “professionalism and financial management rules and regulations would be ensured and strictly followed to avoid bad experience where our 10 Micro-finance bank collapse due to interference by government and its official”.
The deputy governor maintained that “Jigawa state is in the best advantage of diversification police as the state is agrarian and majority of inhabitants were farmers and our farmers were producing a lots of international marketable product”.
He disclosed further that the state government would soon enact laws that will stop and prevent moving cash crops outside the state and tagged it’s with Kano or any other state for export.
Alhaji Hadejia maintained that “During my business retreat in Ethiopia the state government discovered that all the sesame and which produce in Jigawa state tagged as Kano when exporting”,
“I realized that all the sesame other crops produce in Jigawa where move to Kano and even Niger republic and call and tagged with Kano and other place. The importing countries know Kano and the other place not Jigawa which in the real sense the products was produce in Jigawa by people of Jigawa state. But nobody knows that”, he emphases.