Islamic Green Club Empowerment Initiative is not only about Muslims. Our programmes go beyond the Islamic faithful alone. We trained women and youth of various religious faiths including Christians and Muslims from all the wards in Kwara State recently. They were in camp for 21 days and received both theory and practical training, which is okay for them to practice.

Why Kwara State?

It's a kick-off state because I am collaborating with the Office of the Special Assistant to the President on Ethics and Values. I should at least give the Special Adviser, Dr. Sarah Jubril, that honour because she is from Kwara State. Charity, they say, begins at home. We are going to cover all the six geopolitical zones of the country.

What aspects of agriculture do you cover in the training?

We train people in various aspects of agriculture including poultry, fish and grass cutter production, processing and packaging. We teach them how to make drinks from various products. For instance, there is what we call 'desert delight'. It's a special drink without sugar processed from 'tiger nuts' combined with date palm and coconut.

What is your real target for training women and youth on agribusiness?

Our target is to build the capacity of the beneficiaries and ensure that they are empowered to access the agricultural intervention fund made available from the World Bank to our government. We encourage them to go into cooperative clusters so that they can access loans from the banks. The programme is in three stages. We train them, group them into cooperatives and package them to enable them get loans from their micro-finance banks. When they are in cooperatives, we are sure that they can pay back the loan.

What about collateral requirement which many farmers say is difficult to meet?

What the government encourages is to form cooperatives. When you go into cooperatives that shows you are ready. A member guarantees another member and they will pay back because they will not want the failure of their cooperative society. That’s enough collateral. Moreover, the government of the state where the beneficiaries are based will be the one to guarantee the pay back. How many people have you trained so far?

The beneficiaries we issued certificates on 26th of September this year were 165 women and youth.

Have you grouped them into cooperatives to enable them access fund to start their own business?

In fact, it is heartwarming that today (17th October 2014) is the day we had the five certificates of cooperatives for the segregated five groups. I am just receiving them by courier for onward transmission to Kwara State government. Apart from the collaboration with the Office of the Special Assistant to the President on Ethics and Values, what other support have you gotten from government?

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Lower Niger Basin Development Authority, Forestry Department of the Federal Ministry of Environment, and Energy Commission of Nigeria have been very supportive in various ways.

You have just finished with the Kwara project, what next?

Before the Kwara project, we met with the Nigerian Prisons Service. We are bringing the agribusiness training very soon into the prisons arena. I want to tell you today that the Prisons Service has given us the permission to start training the inmates at Kuje as a test case. This is to ensure that they are economically and socially equipped to get back into the society.

What measures have you put in place for the sustainability of the training programme?

To sustain the project, we work with various stakeholders, including my Christian counterparts, women, youth, community leaders and state governments. The project will actually outlive the initiator because each person we train will train at least 10 persons. You can imagine the multiplier effect across the country.