Will Tinubu bring back the marketing boards?

One reason many people think the recent presidential election should be put behind us as quickly as possible is that there is a lot of work to be done and distractions are the least the country requires at this point in time. The problems bedevilling the country are many and solutions, if we must state the truth, will not come easy.

While legal teams attend the court, the president-elect by now must be putting his team together. Policy papers must also be rolling in by now.

The president-elect ought to be consumed with finding solutions to four key problems; the first of which is insecurity. This is one problem that has cost the country a lot in human, material and capital resources. The money wasted on this could have been better utilised in other areas. Will Tinubu, a “bloody civilian”, succeed where Buhari failed spectacularly? If Tinubu fails in this sector, whatever success recorded elsewhere will only be qualified.

Then, there is the problem of crude oil theft. Only God knows how much this country has lost, and is still losing, to this monster. This is money that should have gone into critical sectors of the economy. Unless the leakages are blocked, the bleeding will compromise whatever effort of the Tinubu administration to resuscitate and revamp the economy. Next is fuel subsidy, another drain pipe that has to be completely blocked, but will Tinubu muster the political will to remove subsidy?

Since I grew up to differentiate my right from my left, I have heard it said ad nauseam and ad infinitum that Nigeria would diversify its economy but the economy still remains largely mono-cultural, depending on the sale of crude oil. We have played lip service to plans, policies and promises to return agriculture to its hitherto pride of place and develop the non-oil sector. Before the discovery of oil, agriculture was the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. We had groundnuts, hides and skins, cocoa, coffee, timber, coal, palm oil, and the like. We were also self-sufficient in food crops production. When we talk of structural transformations that Nigeria needs to survive and flourish again, we mean two things: Restructuring of the country and diversification of the economy. It bears repeating again that if Tinubu paves all Nigerian roads with gold and puts dollars in everyone’s pockets but fails to do these two, he would have failed ab initio.

We must bring the groundnut pyramids back. Cocoa must return to its pride of place. We must reclaim our seat as leaders in palm oil production and lots more. We must retrieve positions we lost to countries like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Malaysia and others. The in-coming administration must actively promote the production of cash crops for exports and we must add value to whatever we produce locally. We need to earn more foreign exchange and consume less of imported goods and services.

A controversy at the moment is whether we should maintain the free market policy of farmers selling their commodities in the open market or the government should bring back the days of the agricultural marketing boards. Cross River State’s Gov. Ben Ayade is leading the agitation for a return of the marketing boards while the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Association of Nigeria (FACAN) opposes the move. Last December, the FACAN president, Dr Victor Iyama, decried a return of the marketing boards, saying it would be counter-productive as it would amount to an ill-wind that would not blow any of the stakeholders any good. Comparing Nigerian cocoa farmers with their Ghanaian counterparts where marketing boards are in operation, Iyama said at a press briefing that the Nigerian farmers fare better. Marketing boards, he said, short-change farmers and discourage direct foreign investment.

The present controversy would have been unnecessary had the Buhari government followed through with its plans and policies.  In 2017, the then Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, had  promised that the federal government would organise a national debate on whether or not to re-introduce agricultural marketing boards. He said the dialogue would enable agriculture stakeholders to discuss and analyse the impact and challenges of the boards during its operation with a view to deciding whether or not to re-establish them.

It is unfortunate that the planned debate never took place but now is the time for it! The Tinubu administration must put agriculture on the front burner. With the unemployment rate climbing dangerously towards 40 per cent with most of this figure being able-bodied youths, many of whom have passed out of college with no job in sight; agriculture holds the prospects of providing gainful employment for this critical mass of the nation’s burgeoning population. The time to act is now!

Bolawole is a former Editor of PUNCH newspaper and can be reached through [email protected]