Read in
By Gabriel Okoduwa
With the current hunger in Nigeria, I wish to propose something unconventional, but drastic that may help improve Nigeria’s economy through agriculture. The federal government should appoint 43 ministers of agriculture.
Each of the six geopolitical zones should have coordinating Minister of Agriculture. The 36 states and FCT should have Minister of State for Agriculture. All the 43 ministers of agriculture must be lecturers from the Faculty of Agriculture; a senior lecturer and above. The Minister of State for Agriculture must be from the state he is assigned to. And the coordinating agriculture minister of each geo-political zone must be from that zone.
Each Minister of State is to identify the crops the state have comparative advantage and ensure such crop is produced in large quantities.
Since the land belongs to the governor, each Minister of State in collaboration with the governors and commissioner of agriculture of that state must find a way to make idle land available to farmers. Each Minister of State is to device a means that work for that state to achieve it.
We must learn to promote reward based on productivity to reduce corruption in Nigeria instead of being just hypocrite. To achieve this, five percent of every incremental production of all the farmers that have benefitted from the program of the government should belong to the ministers and all the civil servants, agencies, government officials, and other public officials that were involved in the program. Incremental production in this case means if a farmer was producing 100kg of crop before the new system, if the production increase to 150kg, the five percent of 50kg which is 2.5kg should be given to the ministers of agriculture, commissioner of agriculture and other public official involved in the process.
Stealing of input (capital for farmers, fertilizers, seedlings, land etc. must be treated as terrorism or treason as reward has already been made available from the output.
Read Also: Senate passes Bill to empower RMAFC to monitor Federation Account
All the ministers will be rated yearly. Anyone that cannot significantly increase the output from its state in one year will be replaced.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinator of the Economy will be the supervisor of all the Minister(s) of Agriculture from each of the geopolitical zone. They will provide him/her progress report every two months. And the consolidated report will be presented to the president every quarter. The Minister(s) of State for Agriculture don’t need to attend every Federal Executive Council, (FEC) meeting in Abuja. Only those specially invited for specific reason are expected in Abuja. The six ministers of agriculture in each geopolitical zone are the only automatic members of FEC.
Some people may shout this will cause a major increase in the cost of governance. If we try it for two years and it does not produce output that far exceeds the increased cost of governance, we can scrap it.
We must ensure we don’t use the improved productivity to reduce the price of food items in the market. The price of food doesn’t need to decrease. We need to maintain a good profit margin for farmers to ensure a lot of people go into farming. The increase in activities and employment from the farming will naturally increase the purchasing power of Nigerians and will make it easy for people to buy the food at high price. To achieve this, government must be willing to buy excess output to maintain high price. Government should also ensure enough storage facilities and processing facilities are built to ensure wastage is reduced.
The minister of state should try to influence the state governors to prioritise grading and maintaining farm roads over beautifying the state capital and other nice things which do not lead to increased productivity.
Some people may say this is duplication of the work of the commissioner of agriculture in a state and Permanent Secretary/representative in the federal and state Ministry of Agriculture in a state. For academic argument or in ideal situation, it may look that way. In reality and practicality, considering where we are as a nation, it is not. Nigerians don’t blame governors for poor economy. Governors are generally insulated or immune. Almost all Nigerians put the blame of poor economy on the federal government hence governors have no motivation to push economic agenda. Governors will rather focus on doing city roads and beautifying the state capital where most of the vocal educated class live. This helps them to be popular and win election.
The push for economic revolution must come from the federal government for now. Also commissioners of agriculture are just there in name only. Many of them are not empowered by the governors to drive policy. They are just occupying space. Having someone with some federal power pushing the governor on behalf of the president will go a long way. The likely conflict that may arise will help make agriculture a major discussion and create awareness and seriousness. The psychology of having 43 ministers focussing in agriculture will send a clear message of seriousness and urgency.
It is time Nigeria stopped thinking only the North can produce food. It is time the whole country starts working hard to create food security, opportunity and economic growth through agriculture. Netherland that is not up to the size of Southwest both in landmass and population makes more than three times through agricultural export what Nigeria makes from oil. Agriculture can replace oil. The money may come through effort and sweat unlike oil that is almost free money. But the gain will help push the country in the right path for future generations.
Also, the states should apply similar approach and have Commissioner for Agriculture in every Local Government Area.
•Gabriel, PhD writes from Lagos via Ibhagab@gmail.com.