Plateau Raises Alarm Over Fake News In Circulation To Misled General Public  About Farmers’ Tractors

Yakubu Busari

The Government of Plateau State has uncovered a plot by faceless group to post false and malicious stories on the social media with intent of causing disaffection and distrust against the government and people of Plateau State.

The Commissioner for information and communication, Hon Yakubu Dati in a press statement made available to journalists in Jos.

Hon Dati said the latest of this fabrication is a story titled ‘Plateau Farmers cries out demanding for the whereabouts of 400 tractors commissioned by Buhari”.

He called on the members of the public are hereby called upon to disregard these false and misleading contraptions that exists only in the imagination of its fabricators.

According to him, the government of Plateau State remains focused on delivering on its mandate.

Meanwhile, the alleged mischievous narrative is concocted to undermine the sincerity of the #RescueAdministration and by implication, the #RescueCaptain himself as regards the issues of tractors.

The information was made available by Dalyop D.D says, these are the points:

Tractors were purchased by the #RescueGovernment as part of the genuine steps to consolidate on the #Rescue carried out in our agricultural sector through fertilizer distribution, grants from within and without Nigeria, recognition of our achievements in crop production etc.

Dalyop disclosed that the tractors, all 400 of them, were purchased for and will be used by farmers. However, the conditions attached to the tractors program MUST be fulfilled in order to ensure transparency and accountability since recent history is replete with instances where cars were purchased under the guise of a transport scheme but ended up either with the sons and cronies of Government officials or the program crumbled due to lack of a well thought of and implemented sustainability plan. Gone are the days of irresponsible transactions where people sign up for government interventions only to divert such or misapply usage, this Government want to do things right and it will do things right regardless of attempts to bully or blackmail it by the opposition.

The current tractor scheme by the #Lalong led government will not be allowed to suffer same fate hence the inclusion of strict conditions to support the program beyond the jamboree of flag offs but to last for generations and be used as a point of peer analysis. Some of these conditions include farmers to be organized in clusters and a tractor handed to each cluster.

There is a control and regulatory component in the scheme which talks about periodic remittances to the bank to ensure sustainability of the project and Government will not just hand down tractors without getting some of these critical nuts and bolts to hold the scheme together for today and tomorrow.

I am aware of a multi – stakeholders’ body that is handling these things once they are satisfied and all conditions met, the tractors will be distributed.

If for anything, the opposition is angry because for the first time in the history of this State, agriculture inputs and machines are on ground waiting for farmers to organise themselves instead of what was obtainable in days of yore where farmers queue and wait for non-existent palliatives.

Dalyop, D.D

SSA, ICT.