Emmanuel OchayiJonathan Tsado Vatsa, a former All Progressive Congress (APC) and former Commissioner for Information, Culture, and Tourism in Niger State, has called upon President Bola Tinubu to launch an investigation into the alleged mismanagement of the N500 billion Anchor Borrowers loan allocated by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the state.
Vatsa’s call for scrutiny came during a live radio program in Minna, the capital of Niger State, where he voiced his concerns and shed light on the controversial allocation.
During the broadcast, Vatsa passionately stated, “If Mr. President goes ahead to probe the disbursement of the Anchor Borrowers fund in Niger State, we will be interested to know those farmers that benefited from this Anchor Borrowers fund in Niger State.
“Are they the same farmers that were chased away from their farms and their ancestral homes by bandits, or the farmers in Government House and supervising ministries?”
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Further elaborating on his point, the former APC publicity secretary in Niger State highlighted the chaotic nature of the fund’s distribution, remarking, “We saw how the sharing formula of the state’s N4 billion Anchor Borrowers fund led to a serious fight in the state among the ‘air-conditioned farmers,’ while the real farmers who were the targeted beneficiaries used hoes, cutlasses, and in some cases, bare hands, to weed their farms in communities where there are no bandit activities.”
Vatsa was adamant that the Anchor Borrowers scheme had noble intentions but had been co-opted by certain state governments, including Niger State, where it was allegedly openly diverted by influential figures within the government, to the detriment of struggling farmers nationwide.
Issuing a stern warning, Vatsa underscored the importance of an impartial investigation, cautioning against any attempt to politicize the probe by limiting it to states controlled by opposition parties.
His call for transparency and accountability has ignited fresh debates surrounding the disbursement of the Anchor Borrowers loan, raising questions about the true beneficiaries and the allocation process in various states.
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