It was indeed an excitement of no small measure on June 9, 2020 when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo commissioned the upgraded Zaki Biam International Yam Market in Ukum Local Government Area of Benue State.
The market, believed to be not only the largest yam market in the country but in the entire sub-Saharan Africa, has all species of yam, including the 10 best known in the state.
Among the facilities also commissioned by the vice president were 6000 units renovated stalls/sheds, a newly-built police station and the market administrative building as well as eight units of toilet. The market also has a solar-powered borehole with an overhead tank as well as newly constructed and well-linked internal roads with a drainage system.
Osibanjo, who performed the virtual inauguration of the facility, admitted that the market accounts for over 70 percent of yam supply in the country. He promised that roads and street lights would be provided in the market in due course.
Before now, electricity, storage facilities and security had been the constraints at the market which the vice president disclosed informed the decision to reconstruct the market as the new facility is a federal government intervention through his office and is expected to improve economic activities in the state as well as the earnings of farmers.
To this end, rural farmers, traders and buyers of the facility’s commodities have expressed optimism that the development would impact positively on their immediate environment and boost their finances.
A yam farmer and stall owner in the locality, Jerry Iorngaem, told our correspondent that he was already looking forward to an improved market turnover, adding that he had been in yam business for over a decade at the market and never had cause for regret until the emergence of serious security threats in recent years.
The security problem he (Iorngaem) implied had bedeviled the area in the past few years and climaxed early 2018 when some alleged gangsters rode in bikes and vehicles into the market and opened fire on people, killing at least 22.
“The problem of business transactions in the rural areas has been that of transportation occasioned by bad roads,” he said.
He, however, wants the federal government to extend its intervention so that other yam markets such as Gbeji, Chito, Akpuuna, Dyom, and Tor-Donga would be linked to the Zaki Biam market in order to improve the chain.
For John Anda, a stall owner, the revival of the market comes with a completely new and exciting experience as he opined that the federal government’s intervention would mark the beginning of greater things for yam trade.
Anda expects the federal government to also take its efforts further by providing a yam processing plant to take care of gluts in the production of yams to deepen support for the area.
“There are times especially at the peak of harvest that we have yams everywhere here. A processing factory will help take care of post-harvest losses and open up more opportunities for us,” Anda posited.
In the same vein, Erdoo Johnson, who operates a make shift fruit shop by the roadside directly opposite the market’s gate, said the decision of government to build the ultra-modern facility within the locality remains the best thing that happened to the shopping public around the area.
She posited that petty traders like her also stand a chance of making positive changes in their finances from the benefits that would accrue in the near future judging from the amenities now on ground.
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, at the commissioning appealed to the federal government to review the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol on free entry for citizens of member countries to stop the influx of foreign herders into Nigeria.
Ortom expressed concern that with the federal government’s economic diversification programme, there is still a resurgence of armed herders’ attacks on Benue communities, especially in the rural areas, stressing that between April and June this year, over 60 people had been killed by the attackers across the state.
The governor said Benue alone was ready to provide food for the entire country, but that the activities of herders’ militia had continued to thwart the effort. He reminded the vice president of his promise that the Buhari led administration would rebuild homes ravaged by attackers in Benue during his last visit to the state, pointing out that thousands of displaced people were still living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
Ortom however commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the reconstruction and inauguration of the yam market, emphasizing that commerce has direct impact on millions of poor households and would go a long way in preventing post-harvest losses and ensuring food security.
The governor while also thanking the presidency for the project, said 60 percent of the Nigerian economy depends on the informal sector and that was why the deliberate policy by the federal government to intervene in the sector is indeed strategic to revamping the economy.
Ortom maintained that the facility would have direct impact on millions of poor households and go a long way in supporting livelihoods, and serve as a hub for Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states.
Vice President Osinbajo stressed that Zaki Biam accounts for over 70 percent of cultivated yams in the country, stressing that over 200,000 trucks of yams leave the market daily.
He observed that despite that fact, the market had little storage facility which was why the federal government embarked on the construction of the storage facility, adding that the project would serve as a meeting point for all regulatory bodies including BOI to offer services as the shared facilities are meant to expand production by MSMES.
