The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in Kano state has constituted a five-man committee to recover N1.36 billion from defaulters of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s Anchor Borrower programme in the state.
The AFAN state chairman, Alhaji Faruk Rabi’u, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Wednesday.
He said that the committee became necessary following the difficulties encountered in getting repayment from majority of the benefiting farmers in the state.
“Rice farmers received N1 billion while wheat farmers collected over N360 million from the Central Bank of Nigeria under its anchor borrower programme.
“But up to this time, less than 10 out of 4,744 rice farmers have repaid the loan,” Rabi’u said.
He said that some farmers have taken the association to court, the Human Right Commission and the Public Complaint Commission to challenge the activities of the committee.
“This is very unfortunate considering the fact that none of them (farmers) was forced to take the facility.”
He expressed fear that the CBN would blacklist the state farmers from getting any loan in future if the outstanding loans were not repaid.
The AFAN chairman, who vowed to ensure that the loans were recovered within a period of months, said any farmer who failed to settle the loan would be charged to court for prosecution.
He said the committee had been mandated to visit all the 44 Local Government Areas with a view to recovering the debt on time. (NAN).