Nigerian farmers are constantly faced with the challenges of losing as high as 50 per cent of their total products to post harvest losses caused by inadequate processing and markets for their products. The LAKAJI corridor seems a viable solution to these challenges while serving to create a ready boost to the nation's economic development. Ruth Tene Natsa brings to you the LAKAJI corridor. The LAKAJI project is an acronym given to the Lagos- Kano-Jibiya transport system. It targets 10 states including Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina states respectively and the Jibiya route.

The corridor is said to be Nigeria's busiest transport corridor facilitating the movement of 30 million tonnes of goods per year valued at more than $6 billion dollars and accounting for 36 per cent of the country's total gross domestic product (GDP). As a means to tackling the enormous losses farmers are forced to contend with as a result of poor storage, transport, and existing market facilities, the USAID, in partnership with the Nigerian government, created the Nigerian Expanded Trade and Transport (NEXTT) project where statistics by the USAID/NIPC show that more than 90 million Nigerians live along the corridor, making it the most important transport routes in the country from both a food security and export perspective.

The NEXTT project reveals that the corridor connects West Africa's largest agricultural market in Dawanau, Kano State, with the region's largest consumer market in Lagos, as well as links key production and processing zones for strategic exports to the Lagos ports. These, when fully operational, will create production and processing jobs springing from various cottage industries to boost local markets and communities along the routes. Created in 2012 by the USAID, in collaboration with the NIPC, it aims to support the Nigerian government's efforts to expand trade domestically within the ECOWAS sub-region and beyond. It is also aimed at improving its efficiency so that trade, particularly agricultural products can provide inclusive economic growth and development in Nigeria.

The USAID fact sheet shows that the LAKAJI corridor project will focus on strengthening transport corridor governance along the corridor routes to save time (and spoils) and reduce cost to trade (through transportation), provide technical assistance and resources to co-finance feasibility studies to stimulate new high value investment in agribusiness, transport, and logistics along the corridor. It adds that the project will further seek to formulate, coordinate, and implement trade policies, facilitate trade support, and expand export support. The fact sheet further reveals that the project already records tremendous successes, including facilitating more than $8 million in new agribusiness investment along the corridor, $9 million in new investment, generating $1.9 million in new exports, raising the corridor management group membership by 214 per cent, and supporting exporting firms, among several others.

Speaking on the NEXTT activities between July and August 2015, the executive secretary and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Mrs Sarah Altine Umar, was optimistic that the northern corridor is showing much commitment and progress towards investing in the corridor as state governments had readily made commitments that will hasten development and create viable investments environments. The ES said that the commitments are visible in the Niger State Government's commitment to provide land for warehouse investment with all appropriate titles, free of charge, for the construction of a warehouse by Connect Rail Plc while the NEXTT/NIPC are to work on incentives for investments in the LAKAJI corridor. She added that the Niger State Government had also engaged one of the business development service providers on the NEXTT pipeline to support local services and investments in the state.

Similarly, she said that the Kwara State Government had sought the collaboration of the NIPC to resuscitate the $40 million cashew plant which used to employ over 1,300 workers but was on the verge of collapse as the owners (Olam) now gave preference to the exportation of raw cashew nuts, adding that "through the commission's engagement with the state, the government of Kwara State had agreed to construct a 10 megawatts plant for the Kwara Cashew Cluster project to support the cashew value chain and other industries in the state.

"In addition to those, the Katsina State Chamber of Commerce had committed to setting up a NEXTT Desk in a bid to facilitate investment in the state while the PDF evaluation committee had approved four of the six applications with a total investment of $8.8 million on the LAKAJI corridor. The NEXTT is providing technical and advisory services to Jimest Foods Limited as it seeks to expand its product to the United States. Jimest exports African foods to the United States (US) markets in bits and pieces but now wants to commence large scale.