On July 17, 2024, our correspondent got a call from a farmer who rode on his motorcycle from his village in Shiroro Local Government Area, about 30 kilometers to the Farm Centre in Minna, the Niger State capital, to buy two bags of the government subsidised fertiliser.
He spent the whole day trying to get the commodity, but his effort did not yield any result. He was, thereafter, advised to go to the Niger State Agricultural Mechanisation and Development Agency (NAMDA) at the Maitumbi area of Minna with the assurance to get the commodity but above the government subsidised rate.
At the NAMDA office, the farmer said he was told at the gate that a bag of NPK fertilizer was N35,000 instead of the N21,500, government approved price.
Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago had on July 2, 2024, flagged off the sale and distribution of fertiliser at 50 per cent discount for the 2024 rainy season, but the rural farmers told Weekend Trust that it is difficult for them to access government subsidised inputs.
To confirm the claims of the farmer who earlier complained, our correspondent disguised as a farmer and went to the Farm Centre, where the state government had earlier directed the farmers to go and buy the subsidised inputs and also to the NAMDA office.
At the Farm Centre, he was told that the sale had ended. Then, he went to the NAMDA office to confirm if the sale of the inputs had been moved from Farm Centre as alleged by the farmer.
At the NAMDA gate, our correspondent met four persons – three believed to be security men and another man suspected to be a staff of the agency. He requested for direction on how to get the government subsidised fertiliser and one of the security men requested for his allocation paper.
Our correspondent, who did not have any allocation paper, asked if it was only those with allocation paper that were being attended to, and the man said yes, adding however, that if he was interested, they had some bags of the commodity for sale. When our correspondent insisted that he was only interested in the government subsidised one, one of the men said “nobody sells government subsidised fertiliser here. Only those that have allocation are coming to pick their fertiliser.”
When our correspondent was about to leave, one of the security men called him saying, “We have one bag of NPK here if you want to buy. This is the only bag remaining for now. It is N35,000 because even if you go to the Farm Centre, nobody will sell the fertiliser to you.”
While farmers in Gbako, Shiroro, Bida among other places lamented the lack of access to subsidised inputs, a truck loaded with the government branded bags of fertiliser was allegedly seen at a market in Minna, offloading the commodity into a store.
Investigation by Weekend Trust revealed that 30 trucks, each carrying 600 bags of fertiliser were approved by Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago, out of which 15 trucks were to be sold to farmers at designated sales centres in Bida, Minna and Kontagora, while 15 trucks were to be shared among emirs, political appointees among others, also at the subsidised rate.
Weekend Trust, however, gathered that while politicians and other special allottees sold their allocations to dealers, the 15 trucks meant for farmers were also mopped up by dealers in connivance with some government officials and security personnel, who denied farmers entry to the sales points.
Findings by Weekend Trust further revealed that each of the eight emirs in the state got 600 bags of 50kg fertiliser while 30 commissioners were allocated 600 bags of fertiliser to share. Other allottees were Special Advisers (620 bags) with each getting 20 bags; Directors General and Executive Directors shared 600 bags; Nigerian Army was allocated 600 bags; Nigeria Correctional Service got 300 bags; Women in Agric were given 600 bags while the coordinators appointed by the governor numbering about 600 were given 30 bags.
Others were staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and NAMDA (350 bags) while a group known as “Bago Boys” were allocated 80 bags.
Reacting to findings by Weekend Trust, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Mathew Ahmed, said that neither he nor the commissioner in the ministry signed any allocation paper for anybody, insisting that the ministry was transparent in handling the sale of the fertiliser, as directed by the governor.
Consequently, he confirmed that bags of fertiliser were allocated to emirs, political appointees and other special allottees, saying the allocation of fertiliser to emirs has been an annual tradition in the state.
He said the ministry would engage the extension agents to check if the allottees used the fertiliser on their farms, warning that any farmer found to have sold the allocated fertiliser would be blacklisted and would not be allowed to benefit next time.
“I want to say that the masses or the farmers are not being sincere. The government approved 15 trucks of fertiliser for subsidy. The government did not even want to subsidise input. It took us a long time before we could convince the government to subsidise the input. The governor had a point by saying he would not subsidise inputs, rather farmers should take credit facilities for inputs.
“And one of his cardinal reasons was that when you give farmers the fertiliser, they go back to resell to Agro dealers and the Agro dealers would go and sell at a hundred per cent price or the Agro dealers can even give some of them the money to go and buy and bring to them. The dealers will just give them the commission based on the number they are able to get for them. So, that was the main reason why the governor said he was not going to give the subsidy.
“Last year, the governor gave out 100 trucks at 20 per cent subsidy and farmers only paid 80 per cent. After a long while we were able to convince him that it was part of government’s interventions for grassroots farmers and he finally agreed, but we were given 15 trucks against 100 trucks that were released last year.
“Out of the 15 trucks, we agreed that each of the three zones in the state would take five trucks and in each of the trucks, you have 30 tons which is 600 bags of 50kg fertiliser. So, in each of the zones, if you multiply 600 bags of fertiliser by 5, you are going to get 3,000 bags. And we made a public announcement which was also on social media, that we were selling the fertiliser in the three zones and we said that in each of the zones, only 1, 500 farmers were going to benefit from the intervention. We set up committees for each of the zones and we gave the committees’ terms of reference that each farmer should not get more than two bags.
“Now, we had issues with Minna. To the best of my knowledge, there were no complaints from Bida and Kontagora. The challenge we had in Minna, was that the Chanchaga boys were not allowing farmers to enter to buy the fertiliser and we kept cautioning them. I also went there to address them to maintain peace,” the Permanent Secretary explained.
He added that, “When the fertiliser sales started, there was pressure from emirs because before now, the commodity was usually allocated to them, but this time around, we could not allocate to them because we did not have. But Niger Foods had fertiliser and I met with the chairman of Niger Foods to talk to His Excellency to give us some to give to the emirs. I learnt that many of the emirs have farms and many of their subjects also have farms. So, annually, bags of fertiliser are allocated to them.
The reason why we have fertiliser at NAMDA Store is that when His Excellency came on board, he said every civil servant should cultivate at least one hectare of land. Emirs were pressurising us; the commissioners and other political appointees were giving us pressure as well, that they also have farms and where did we expect them to get fertiliser from. So, the governor gave us additional 15 trucks of fertiliser and the emirs were given eight trucks. We gave all the commissioners one truck of fertiliser; we gave all the Special Advisers one truck and 20 bags; we gave all the Directors General and Executive Directors one truck; Nigerian Army requested for allocation and we have been using them for security, so we gave them a truck; Nigeria Correctional Service also wrote to us that they have farms, and we gave them 300 bags, which is half a truck; Women in Agric said they couldn’t stand the pressure at the sales point and we gave them a truck; the coordinators that the governor appointed were given half a truck; staff of the ministry and NAMDA were given 350 bags. There were some guys that call themselves, Bago boys; we gave them only 80 bags. So, we have a reserve of 150 bags.”
The Permanent Secretary revealed that there were more than 150 requests from individuals and institutions that the ministry had not treated, saying that the government could not do more than it has done.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Musa Salihu Bawa Bosso, appealed for calm, saying that the government was doing its best to support farmers in the state to improve productivity.
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