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This is to notify all candidates who have successfully secured admission into the University that the portal of the University is now active for commencement of payment for registration fees.

All candidates are to visit www.fuaz.edu.ng for online payment of their registration fees.

SIGNED

Abdulaziz Yusuf Bazata

Registrar

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The Director-General, National  Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE has challenged Universities in the country to devote greater attention to enterpreneurship training in order to produce graduates that will create job opportunities, not job seekers.

Inuwa made the challenge while receiving the management of the Federal University of Agriculture Zuru, Kebbi State, under the leadership of its Vice-Chancellor Professor, Musa Isyaku Ahmed.

The NITDA boss described University’s role in finding lasting solution to  Nigeria’s unemployment as critical, in view of the large number of young people graduating annually.

“I urge you to continue to emphasize more on enterpreneurship trainings so that graduates can become job creators instead of job seekers.

“Mr President has the passion for job creation, a passion of diversifying our economy and so on, moving from resource based economy to knowledge based or Digital Economy, and for Nigeria to achieve that, we need to have the human capital, which our population is the greatest resources,” he added.

He said most of the people coming out from the universities are becoming liability to the country, because they will come and start waiting for jobs. Instead, why not us start producing people that will create jobs, and to do that you have to start from the universities.

“Universities can be used as mentoring, training and couching grounds to the students, encouraging them to start their own business while in school,” he said.

Commenting on NITDA’s National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) programme, Inuwa stated that it was an initiative of the Agency designed to support young Nigerian farmers that are very passionate about making a career in farming.

“Firstly, we all need to eat to survive, how can we increase our produce, how can we use technology to change the way we do our farming, and how can we make it a more fancy job, so that these young graduates can also embrace farming as a career,” he noted.

NITDA, he said, has concluded arrangements to engaging Universities’ research works practically on the farms with a view to achieving the set goal.

“This year, we will re-strategise our process and say why not work with Universities’ research institutions, where most of their works end on the shelves, why can’t we convert those researches and move into the farm to experiment”, added.

Earlier, Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture Zuru, Professor Musa Isyaku Ahmed, said they were at the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters on a familiarisation visit to further avail themselves with what they have been seeing and hearing about NITDA’s impactful interventions on so many sectors, particularly the tertiary institutions.

Professor Musa who informed that, Federal University of Agriculture Zuru is the only University that came into being from a Bill by the National Assembly, and was assented to by the President as the Agric based, which came on board during the lockdown as a result of COVID-19 Pandemic.

He said the newly established institution has as its mandate, the injection of Enterpreneurship and IT into its curriculum.

While soliciting for the collaborative support of NITDA in its intervention programmes, the Prof also called for paradigm shift in the nation’s education system.

“We are aware of NITDA’s finger prints in many Nigerian tertiary institutions, we here soliciting for same to our newly established Institution,” he pleaded.

By Mansour Aliyu Hassan.

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As part of efforts to speed up it mechanization programme in the agriculture sector, the federal government has revealed it would receive the first batch of tractors out of the 10,000 tractors expected from Brazil under the Green Imperative Project.

The federal government signed a $1.2 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Development Bank of Brazil for agriculture mechanisation in Nigeria.

The government intends to improve agriculture mechanization and set up modern agro centers across the country with the credit facility.

Addressing journalists in his office on Friday during the Ministerial Press Briefing to mark the 2021 World Food Day with the Theme: Our Actions are our Future. Better production, Better nutrition, a Better environment and a Better life, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar, said the Green Imperative programme which is expected to address the long standing agricultural mechanization problem is underway.

According to him, the programme would ensure adequate supply of tractors and other implements to farmers on a public-private partnership arrangement. The model adopted is sustainable and would ameliorate the low production challenge due to lack of sufficient machinery.

Abubakar also said the Federal Government has lifted a total of 4,205,576 Million Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years.

He said that it was achieved through the Ministry’s strategic policies and programmes and by extension the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020 of the President Muhammadu Buhari led Government, which sees agriculture as the alternative to oil for meaningful economic diversification. Dr. Mahmood Abubakar stated that ‘’the ERGP envisage that investment in agriculture can guarantee food security, have the potential to be a major contributor to job creation and will save foreign exchange required for food imports.

The Minister stated that “our various empowerment initiatives along production, processing and marketing of agricultural commodities we have lifted a total of 4,205,576 Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years. This is going to continue as part of Mr. President's promise to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within the next 10 years.”.

In his remarks, FAO Country Representative in Nigeria, Mr. Fred Kafeero, said that “everyone of us has a role to play in ending hunger by changing the way we produce, adding value to our food products, making food choices that improve our health; and by reducing wastage and loss of our food.”

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The Vice-Chancellor of the newly established Federal University of Agriculture Zuru, Professor Musa Isiyaku Ahmed, has said the university will start academic activities in September as planned.

Briefing journalists during a visit to the Commissioner of Higher Education in Birnin Kebbi, he added that all the necessary academic arrangements had been concluded to ensure a smooth start.

He added that when the university takes off fully, it would boost agricultural activities in the state, generate more revenue and boost employment opportunities.

“We have developed the academic brief for the university. We have also developed curricula for the 23 programmes that are supposed to be at take-off stage,” he added.

He pointed out that the university would run seven colleges, including Science, Agronomy, Animal Science, Food Technology, Home Economics, Fisheries, Forestry and Wild Lives, Veterinary Medicine and Economics and Extension, with about 28 departments.

“The university has also developed its website to serve as a window to the outside world, and that is why we intend to commence our academic activities by September 2020,” he said.