On October 17, 2022, at Arewa House, Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented to the North, his blueprint for the region. He said he would fight bandits and terrorists with the technology the Buhari administration began to use in 2022.
Tinubu pledged to turn the North’s fertile land into grain fields – the North will become the hub of agriculture. The dairy economy and agro-allied industries would be promoted as he accelerates the Mambilla Project and rejuvenates existing power stations. He vowed to exploit the gold in Zamfara, and iron ore in Kogi State.
So far, President Tinubu has appointed eight Special Advisers (SAs), appointments seen by many political pundits as the direction of his administration’s policies and programmes. Of the portfolios of the SAs, agriculture gets none. Has Tinubu forgotten agriculture?
The North needs a unique recovery programme in the agriculture sector – the mainstay of the region’s economy is now devastated by banditry, insecurity, floods and corruption. Some of the previous administrations’ beautifully designed programmes for agriculture have been abused. Many ‘real’ farmers have tearfully complained that the custodians of the programmes and projects have hijacked the benefits.
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The Anchor Borrowers Programme, Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI), Youth Farm Lab, Paddy Aggregation Scheme, Agricultural Trust Fund, Presidential Economic Diversification Initiative (PEDI), Food Security Council, etc, including other CBN intervention programmes, are good.
However, the implementation and targeting were not totally successful. For example, under the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI), fertilizer blenders benefit from government resources, and smile to the banks, while the farmers for whom the scheme was primarily designed, buy fertilizers through their noses. Instead of the N5,000 per bag, as envisaged by the programme, a bag of fertilizer now costs between N20,000 to N25,000.
Despite the shortcomings of some of the programmes, Nigerian agricultural production has improved. For instance, rice milling created many jobs. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said, the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP) supported about 4.57 million smallholder farmers who cultivated over 6.02 million hectares of 21 agro-commodities across the country.
Also, statistics from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), indicated that some of these programmes contributed significantly to the increased national output of commodities, with maize and rice peaking at 12.2 and 9.0 million metric tons in 2021 and 2022.
However, one of the fundamental bottlenecks that these projects and programmes faced, were its managers. For instance, the last two ministers of agriculture were somehow ‘disconnected’ from agriculture. Moreover, some of the managers of these programmes and projects are neither agro-enthusiasts nor farmer-friendly.
With workable and real farmer-friendly agricultural policies, programmes, and projects, President Tinubu will have a golden opportunity to directly ‘talk’ to millions of northerners.
What should Tinubu do? First, his Minister of Agriculture should not only be an agricultural enthusiast, but an agile practising farmer who understands the entire agricultural value chain, politics and markets. He should be one who understands the needs and global trends in agriculture and has a connection with real farmers and private initiatives. Tinubu’s minister of agriculture should be someone who sees agriculture from the prisms of entrepreneurship, wealth creation, and national GDP growth.
Tinubu should also appoint a Special Adviser on Agriculture and an advisory team on agriculture which should be populated by competent real farmers.
Tinubu may wish to sustain but redesign all the current agricultural policies, programmes and projects. He needs to remove the obvious opacity which characterises most of the programmes.
Tinubu should bring real farmer associations and groups on board to assist the government in redesigning the programmes. They have a good grasp of what went wrong with the schemes, programmes and projects and how to rejuvenate them for millions of real farmers in the country.
The redesigned and improved programmes should incorporate livestock production and the establishment of more herbicide and pesticide factories. Nigeria has no business spending billions of naira on importing water mixed with some chemicals, it should work on reducing the cost of seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs; including labour and transportation costs.
Zayyad I. Muhammad writes from Abuja, [email protected]
