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The Akwa Ibom state will earn no less than $85million by 2019, from coconut processing, Governor Udom Emmanuel has assured.
Emmanuel maintained that due to the slide in crude oil prices the state is looking into other ways to sustain the state’s economy.
The governor who spoke in Uyo at the weekend , during a parley with newsmen, said Agriculture is one of the ways his administration tends to make the economy strong in a mono economy.
” Cconut has about 365 uses, we have set up a technical committee to look at these things. we want to be food sufficient and partner with experts in the private sector in sundry agricultural areas. we want an economy that is self sustaining. We looking at garri, rice, and other cash crops.”
He said ” we have over 200 hectares of land for palm produce. we have set three technical committees. In october we launched the 2nd planting season, we are targeting 15,000 hectares of land for agricultute.we want to create a food basket and create jobs. we sent 100 youths to israel to learn the skills.”
On education he said ” we have released N1.5 Billion for infrastructure in primary and secondary schools, we talking about value for money. by the end of January our target is N3Billion for primary and secondary schools.we have given subvention to teachers , salalries already paid , leave allowance for 2015 paid , just to motivate them”
Governor Emmanuel said further ” We say we must improve from 52 per cent pass rate in WASC to between 68 and 70 per cent , so we must motivate the teachers. We have a speacial Adviser in Education monitoring, if a student or pupil is found wandering during school hours we purnish the head of the school, because his duty is keep them in school”