Kwara State Governor, Alhaji  Abdulfatah Ahmed, has lamented that the politicisation of  the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF)   has continued to stall the realisation of its state peer review objectives.

Ahmed disclosed this Tuesday in Ilorin while receiving the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, led by its Vice-Chairman, Senator Adegbenga Sefiu-Kaka, at the Government House, Ilorin.

The governor, who was  responding to a request by the committee that states should compare notes on areas of comparative advantage, said "the crisis in the NGF has grossly denied such interactions."

According to him, "the politicisation of the forum had denied it the opportunity of a robust review of the commercial agriculture development programme of the state."

Ahmed, who suggested that funding windows for agriculture must take cognisance of the dynamics of commercial agriculture, added that the prevailing funding policies were counter-productive as they were designed to fund subsistence farming.

He said: "It is  imperative that stakeholders see commercial agriculture as a business in a manner that would ensure that the country takes advantage of its natural endowments to promote all year farming."

Describing agriculture as a singular potential that could  effectively change the fortunes of the people if properly harnessed, the governor urged the National Assembly to formulate policies that would address the disconnect between policy formulation and implementation and poor funding of agriculture.
Earlier, Sefiu-Kaka commended the giant stride of the governor's agricultural revolution, which he said, other state governments should emulate.

The lawmaker, however, said: "We have been following events in Kwara and we are happy and impressed with what we see on ground, we commend you and want to urge you not to relent in your effort to turn the state to an agricultural hub so that other states would copy you and thereby ensure food sufficiency and security."