Author: The Nation

The National Population Commission (NPC) spent N200 billion on preparations for the postponed 2023 housing and population census, Chairman of the NPC, Nasir Isa-Kwarra said yesterday.

 Isa-Kwarra, who spoke in Abuja during a breakfast meeting with media executives, said of the N800 billion was budgeted for the exercise, the government had only released N224 billion. He added that though the commission underestimated the impact of the 2023 elections, there were elements of financial constraints.

The Federal Government said the incoming administration will decide on the date for the census.

Isa-Kwarra said: “What we’ve been able to spend is about N200 billion, but the N800 billion budget covers the cost of conducting the census. The government has given us N800 billion, but it is a budget, and we believe we may either spend up to that or not.

“The government has actually provided N224 billion which we have utilised for the census so far.”

The chairman, who hailed President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to postpone the census, said it was the right thing to do as the country is about to transit to another administration.

He also assured Nigerians of conducting the census in a serene and secure environment.

• DE candidates to sit same examination with others

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation (JAMB) remitted N2 billion to the federation account as interim surplus for the 2023 operating year after the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).

The board said more funds would be remitted as its operations for the year are completed.

A statement by the Head of Public Affairs and Protocol (JAMB), Fabian Benjamin, said the remittance was to reiterate the Prof. Is-haq Oloyede-led management stand to leverage on technology and discipline to manage the agency’s affairs.

According to the statement, N55 billion has been remitted to the Federal Government since Oloyede was appointed in 2016.

The statement reads: “Since assuming office, the Prof. Is-haq Oloyede-led management has remitted over N55 billion to the Federal Government. This is far above the N60 million remitted by the Board in its 38 years of existence prior to Oloyede’s appointment.

“These returns were bolstered by the Board’s expanded internal capacities for its operations achieved through direct execution of its processes and procedures, which resulted in, for instance, a savings of N1.2 billion paid annually to a service provider and a downward review of the N1.2 billion annually paid to another to about N400 million with the same old service provider. This in addition to the recovery of over N1.2 billion in both cash and estates in choice areas of Abuja, in 2016.”

The body also reiterated its commitment to press ahead with the repositioning of the conduct of public examinations.

A statement after its management committee meeting said: “Another major policy change to be implemented to address all loopholes giving rise to abuses in the Direct Entry admission processes is that all DE candidates would henceforth be required to sit the examination with other candidates for them to justify the possession of their A’level certificates.

“This policy is to be situated within the ambit of the Board’s relentless efforts aimed at enhancing the growth of the nation’s education as it would promote transparency, accountability and good governance. It also underscores the Board’s commitment and determination towards changing the negative narrative of A’level admissions into higher institutions.”

The National Assembly has invited the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to a meeting over its strike action.

 NARD President Dr. Innocent Orji said he received an invitation to attend a meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly yesterday.

Speaking on a television programme yesterday, Dr. Orji said his association has had no negotiation with the Federal Government since the strike started.

He said: “All we are hearing in the media is that the government is negotiating with us, but nobody has called us for any negotiation, except that they are negotiating with other associations. It was only this afternoon (yesterday) that I was informed of a meeting convened by the National Assembly for May 19. I got the invitation this afternoon but outside that, there has not been any negotiation since May 15 when our National Executive Council had an extraordinary session and declared the five-day strike.”

On replacing the striking doctors with ad hoc staff, the Dr. Orji said he wishes the government good luck.

“Part of the major demands we have in our notice of strike is for the Federal Government to quickly replace the clinical staff that has left the system. We have been saying that we have a massive manpower shortage in our hospitals and we do not have enough numbers to contain the influx of patients in hospitals across the country.

“So, if the government that has refused to do that is now waking up to employ ad hoc staff as a way for resolving this issue, I wish them good luck. But as long as they do not negotiate with good fate, the crisis in the health sector will continue, our members are watching.”

He also warned that threats from the government will escalate the crisis in the health sector.

“All we have heard so far from the government are just threats, and those threats will escalate the crisis we have already. So, I call on the government to do the right thing. Our demands are clear, they are specific, they are achievable and these are things they can achieve in a matter of days. All they need to do is to show good faith and commitment to achieving them and leave all these threats. It is not going to help anybody.”

The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, has expressed shock over the resurgence of banditry and other forms of insecurity across the country, immediately after the elections.

 Sultan Abubakar spoke as co-chair at the second quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in Abuja, with the theme ‘Media and Effective Nation-Building’.

 The monarch said the media is a critical stakeholder in nation building, adding that they should be involved in all activities and programmes of government.

 He said: “Take a look at what’s happening across the countries of the world where the media compromised in quality, facts and truth. It’s unfortunate that Sudan is going through war and the role of the media is crucial in ending or prolonging the war. The media played a different role in the 2023 elections; it will also play a crucial role in the coming administration. So, we expect to hear from the media professionals on their challenges and expectations, and pass the message to the incoming government.

 “Unfortunately, the resurgence of insecurity in the country is very alarming. Throughout the campaigns and the elections, we never had these cases of insecurity. Suddenly after the elections, the killings have continued across Niger, Plateau, Kaduna and other places. These killings are definitely not related to religion, but the activities of some uninformed people.

 “Imagine a situation where bandits would invade a community, kill people and destroy their properties, with little or no resistance from security officials, only for them to appear long after the attacks and, perhaps, to mock the people or look at the ashes of destroyed items.

 “Few days ago, it was reported that some United States Embassy staff were killed and burnt in Anambra State. That’s barbaric and shouldn’t have happened because there’s no justification for that.”

 President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel Okoh, who is also co-chair of NIREC, explained that the theme of the meeting was designed in recognition of the vital role the media plays in nation-building, and the need to foster unity and a better working relationship between the media and those in leadership for the interest of our country.

 He said: “The media can help to enrich the conversation of leaders by providing well investigated and researched stories to improve the religious literacy of the leaders, which simply means having basic knowledge of other religions and engender respect for other religions.”

 Okoh challenged media professionals to see their jobs as a calling and not a profession that guarantees access to riches and fame. “This is the attitude that will help them eschew selfishness and work for the good and development of Nigeria.

 The cleric maintained that media professionals have the power and platform to cause and end the crisis, ‘and they also have enough information to set different religions and ethnic nationalities on collusion, hence the need for the professionals to understand the situation in Nigeria’.

Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha explained NIREC’s responsibility as providing leadership for religious institutions in the country towards a harmonious and peaceful co-existence. According to him, its blueprint and terms of reference provide the space and capacity that can give Nigeria a national renaissance and peaceful coexistence.

 He said: “If God entrusted the deliverance of Nigeria into the hands of Christians and Muslims, then failure to entrench peace in the nation would be akin to failing God. I pray God continues to guide NIREC’s leadership with a united mission and sincerity of purpose to achieve the mandate for which it was established.”

In the past eight years, food security and self-sufficiency have been the main objectives of agricultural and trade policies.

 To this end, various policies adopted over time seek to achieve food security. Expectations were that the agricultural sector was on the verge of a significant transition. Despite series of policy reform initiatives, the perspective of analysts is that so many gaps exist from a broad overview of the current scene in the sector. Clearly, the various national agricultural policy documents released by the government have not attained an agricultural output growth rate in excess of 15 per cent per annum. Data output growth stands between five and 10 per cent.

In 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan launched the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA). It was created with the hope of boosting smallholder farmers’ income and rural entrepreneurs, who are engaged in the production, processing, storage and marketing of selected commodity value chains on a sustainable basis. Like other policies, analysts’ complaint was that not much has been achieved in facilitating hunger and poverty reduction. However, there was a large-scale programme of agricultural production support.  Powerful farmers’ organisations and food associations lobby against several reforms, including fertiliser subsidy implementation, food safety practices and the adoption of new technologies.

According to experts, reforming agricultural policies has been intensely political due to the involvement of groups and politicians. The relationship between the federal and the respective state governments affected the implementation of policies. Also, the collaborative framework on which the Federal Government and state governments coordinate with related departments and agencies has hampered the pace of how the policies should be implemented effectively. At the end of President Jonathan’s regime, the agricultural sector had contributed an average of 21.09 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP).

When President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, he launched the Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP) to consolidate the ATA policy. Known as the Green Alternative 2016–2020, it was geared towards the provision of legislative and agricultural framework conducive to macro-policies, security-enhancing physical infrastructure and institutional mechanisms, so as to enhance access to essential inputs, finances, information on innovation, agricultural services and markets. It had components to address livelihoods, production, markets, value addition, trade and finance, food and nutrition security and investments in agri-business, among others.

So, poor implementation has affected the government’s plans to achieve broad-based growth, poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, resilience, climate change adaptation and trade development. Since its inception, the policy faced several hiccups. Though the emphasis of the Green Alternative Policy was to facilitate the transition of farming communities from subsistence production to non-traditional high-value agricultural value chains that would ultimately result in wealth creation, analysts are still questioning its impact. Not so much has been achieved in increasing sustainable irrigation development and mechanisation.

In 2016, the government established the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme after banning the importation of rice through the land borders 2016. Following its inauguration, the CBN released N40 billion for ABP for rice farmers. While they carpeted the implementation of the scheme in terms of failure to boost overall national production, the other challenges identified were that it poorly targeted loan recipients, funds were used for purposes unrelated to agriculture and a faulty repayment structure. For instance, by 2020 agriculture contributed an average of 22.94 per cent to the country’s GDP.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed concern over the effectiveness of the scheme. According to the IMF, about N1.4 trillion or 76 per cent of the N1.9 trillion loans collected by farmers under the ABP initiative remain unpaid as of January this year. While the government would need to critically reconsider how it can improve agriculture to have a meaningful impact on food security, analysts believe that some minimal accomplishments have been recorded.

The past eight years have seen various interventions to grow agricultural output, make the sector more competitive, increase the sector’s resilience to threats posed by climate change, address food insecurity and boost earnings. However, the scorecard has not been impressive – no thanks to poor funding, low technology adoption, pervasive insecurity, and half-hearted implementation of policies, among other issues. DANIEL ESSIET reports

In the agriculture sector, a crucial segment of Nigeria’s economy, the policy goals have been to increase the capacities of the value chains to boost food security and the processing of agricultural commodities. However, the sector has been characterised by the failure of policy reform, low technology adoption and infrastructure investment in the last eight years, which have impacted farmers’ productivity and profitability. The position of analysts is that reforms in the sector have not generated impressive results in terms of increasing rural incomes, reducing poverty, combating malnourishment and sending agro-food exports soaring.

To this end, they called on the government to address long-term challenges posed by slower rates of production growth, declining commodity prices, limited land for further expansion, which have characterised the sector within the review period. The Deputy Managing Director of OCP Africa Project Incubation (West Africa), Caleb Usoh, said Nigeria has not been bereft of policies. While the government has designed many policies with clear goals and objectives, according to him, the experience has been that they were not implemented properly. Hence, the need for turnaround plans to revitalise agriculture, with a special focus on increasing local production and improving the value chain. He was of the view that the country should have radically boosted its place in global agro-food markets, becoming the world’s largest exporter of key cash crops.

 So far, he regards the situation in the sector in terms of transformation over the past eight years as not really remarkable. He called for improvement in the policy environment, to enable investments that will allow the agriculture sector to continue to adapt to the opportunities created by rising demand and the challenges of climate change. Usoh noted that the country remains vulnerable to food insecurity. He attributed this to lack of synergy and collaboration among agencies working in different sectors and various value chains to support the agricultural sector. “Agencies should work to support agriculture. The challenge is that many of the agencies have not worked to their full potential. The leadership of some of these agencies has not lived up to expectations. They have not been able to create an impact based on their mandates on agriculture. Rather, they have been bedeviled with issues around corruption.

 “Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), for instance, has been confronted with serious corruption issues. Agriculture, at this stage in Nigeria, will need the efforts of many of these agencies that have diverse mandates across the various value chains. Inasmuch as they have different mandates, there is a focused ministry, which they should work in collaboration with and not in silos. They should work closely with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).

“You could imagine the positive impact if NIRSAL has had a rewarding parley with FMARD. It is just an example. NIRSAL appeared to have been working in isolation in a space where collaborating with the ministry would be helpful. This kind of collaboration will help,” Usoh said, stressing that a more purposeful and prudent use of public funds in the agriculture sector would make all the difference in transforming the agriculture sector if the government has the will to do so.

 Last year, President Muhammadu Buhari sacked the Managing Director of NIRSAL, Aliyu Abdulhameed, over fraud allegations. It was gathered that the removal of Abdulhameed may not be unconnected with multiple allegations of corruption, including a N5.6 billion wheat project meant for farmers in Kano and Jigawa states in 2018. NIRSAL is a $500 million non-bank financial institution, a creation of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) mandated to manage agribusiness-related credit risks in Nigeria.

The CBN has been guaranteeing all borrowings disbursed by NIRSAL. Abdulhameed’s alleged corrupt practices also forced the CBN to suspend funding to NIRSAL. On this, Usoh maintained that one of the challenges of the sector is that agencies working in the sector were not collaborating to ensure that the current agricultural policies and strategies drive investment flows as corruption continued to characterise public expenditure on agriculture. This, according to him, has raised much concern about the security of food and agriculture.

 Analysts are of the view that as far as numbers are concerned, there have been modest impacts on food security, with farming getting riskier by the day. Basic rural infrastructure has not significantly improved over the past eight years, resulting in serious infrastructural bottlenecks. As the country’s economic growth is now reoriented towards the production and export of agro-products, the Director-General of the African Centre for Supply Chain and President of the Association of Outsourcing Professionals (AOPN), Dr Obiora Madu, indicated that exporters have failed to meet the quality requirements of foreign markets.

 This has created competitive pressure on agro-exporters as farm products get to the global market quickly from countries with better farming technology and higher quality standards. According to him, the requirements for quality of export products are increasing, even as he lamented that not much has been achieved in terms of implementing measures to build projects and programmes to support the agriculture sector. Such programmes include creating better connections with the export terminals, empowering its position in the supply chain, increasing the value-added content and enhancing the competitiveness of agricultural products.

 Last year, there were heavy floods which destroyed millions of hectares of farmlands. Subsequent to this, many operators such as the National President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), Dr Victor Iyama, warned that the country could soon face food shortage if thousands of acres of cropland aren’t restored. With considerable damage done to the agricultural sector, the Vice-Chairman of the All Farmers’ Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Otunba Oke Babafemi, warned of a looming food crisis.

 The Chief Executive of Agricultural Management and Rural Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin Kwara State, Dr Olufemi Oladunni, stated that climate change and erratic weather patterns make farmers’ situation worse. He and the team at ARMTI have been working with farmers for many years in areas considered vulnerable in terms of water and in drought-prone areas. However, Oladunni expressed his hope that the future of the agriculture sector is bright despite the challenges across the sector. In the face of sustained macroeconomic volatility, he explained that on a national scale, there were moves to transform agriculture into a dynamic, high-growth sector.

He listed long-running programmes aimed at raising agricultural productivity and reducing poverty in rural communities. He added that they were crucial to meeting the emerging domestic and global market opportunities, even as he said it would create jobs, raise farmers’ incomes and ensure the food security needs of the country. These long-running programmes include the New Act of the Agricultural Research Council, Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, the Bank of Agriculture (BOA)’s funding of agri-businesses, public-private partnership in fertiliser production, a collaboration between private input companies and public agricultural extension agencies, school feeding programme, National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) and capacity-building for stakeholders through various departments and agencies of government.

 For him, there are several projects in the pipeline to help raise agricultural productivity, resilience and access to farmers’ markets. He believes that ARMTI has, over the past eight years, been involved in youth agriculture empowerment programmes. The institute has been implementing climate-smart training where farmers and producers learn about new technologies and cultivation techniques through demonstration plots and workshops, significantly enhancing skills in crop production, in addition to mastering best practices in managing climate risks in the fields. He stressed that what the sector requires is a better understanding of what to do to ensure agricultural productivity while reducing risks and increasing farmers’ incomes.

 Analysts maintain that the sector needs to improve its policy environment, to enable investments that will allow the farm sector to continue to adapt to the opportunities created by rising demand and the challenges of climate change and limited resources. With the increasing population, one issue that has plagued the country has been the growing percentage of food that is lost or wasted. Currently, Nigeria is still one of Africa’s 10 biggest food wasters, with nearly 30 per cent of its output almost completely discarded after harvest.

 In the past eight years, reduction in food loss has been the subject of several workshops across the sector, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), universities, and research institutes. In a chat with The Nation, the Executive Director of Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Prof. Lateef Oladimeji Sanni, noted that the problem is found throughout the country’s production chain, which is evident in lacks of infrastructure, handling, packaging, transportation and storage. He has been part of a working group to identify technologies and procedures to reduce food loss and food waste in Nigeria, harmonisation of safety regulations and preservation of wholesomeness of foods for consumers.

 “The critical problem we have as a country is that most of our agricultural commodities are wasted. So, the post-harvest losses are very high-almost 25 to 40 per cent, depending on the crop, especially the perishable crops. This has given us an opportunity as a country to preserve our food so that we can gain more and also reduce post-harvest losses. When we reduce post-harvest losses, we are extending the storage period of the commodities and products. We are lucky as a country because we have a government that is interested in the promotion and deployment of agricultural technologies and innovations.

“The focus of the Federal Government agriculture policy of 2022 to 2027 is very strategic in this regard. The incoming president has also alluded to the fact that we need to provide storage facilities, so we can have dry commodities that can be utilised by the commodities boards. These are some of the interventions that are opportunities for research institutes such as NSPRI, where I have assumed office as the Chief Executive/Executive Director.

 “NSPRI, in the past 75 years, has developed technologies and post-harvest solutions that will be able to take care of farmers at the farm gate and also primary processors, dietary processors as the case may be. We have quite a lot of NSPRI cold technologies and solutions at low and medium levels, which we are ready to showcase to the Nigerian communities. We have dry kinds of dryers, especially solar smart dryers. We have a solar-smart cold chain to store vegetables such as carrots and cucumbers, among others before marketing. We have smoking and inner atmosphere silos. In the nearest future, we are going to organise national seminars to promote an effective post-harvest system as a nation. Secondly, we are going to carry out a lot of sensitization and training for capacity building.”

 Experts have noted that agriculture as a sector has been getting less and less attention in terms of the budget in the past eight years. While the amount invested in the agricultural sector might be increasing, the percentage of the total budget allocation has not improved significantly. Overall, the national budget allocation for agriculture has not improved significantly between 2015 and now and failed to meet the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) commitment to allocate 10 per cent of their national budget to agriculture. In most cases, under-disbursement has been a big challenge, leading to available funds being absorbed by wages and running costs. Consequently, issues such as research have gotten less or no funds.

 In 2003, as part of the Maputo Declaration and the adoption of the CAADP, African countries committed to eliminating hunger by allocating 10 per cent of their national budgets to agriculture and achieving a six per cent average annual growth rate at a national level. On average, budgetary allocations to the agricultural sector have not exceeded two per cent. The Federal Government allocated 1.8 per cent of its budget to agriculture in 2011, 1.6 per cent in 2012, 1.7 per cent in 2013 and 1.4 per cent in 2014. In 2015, N40.66 billion was allocated to the agriculture sector of the total national budget of N4.49 trillion, representing a meagre 0.9 per cent. There was a marginal increase between 2016 and 2019. In 2016, it rose to 1.3 per cent; while in 2017, it was 1.8 per cent. The Federal Government increased budgetary allocation to the sector by three-digit billions for the first time in 2017 when N135.6 billion was allocated to the sector. In 2018, budgetary allocation increased to ?203 billion; while in 2019, it was ?137.9 billion. In 2020, it dropped to 1.51 per cent and later increased in 2021 but dropped again to 1.25 per cent in 2022.

So, analysts are not surprised that the agricultural sector has not done well given the poor leadership at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, which was not grounded towards measurable action plan delivery of agricultural development. Most analysts believe that increased production could have driven the local economy and potentially create jobs by providing opportunities for supply chain services, such as bulking, processing, and transportation. However, even when operating with less funding due to under-disbursement, there are still issues with the absorption capacity in the implementation of the agriculture budget.

 Pundits posit that the sector has been undermined by the under-utilisation of funds, especially with regard to infrastructure. Programmes such as research, extension, fisheries, and forestry have received low budgets. The development budget includes expenditures for the implementation of public agriculture investments such as infrastructure, irrigation, mechanisation, farm inputs, research and development and renewable energy. Oladunni was of the view that adequate budgetary allocations for extension services, research and development would drive agricultural production and productivity. Hence, he emphasised that the main thrusts of the agriculture policy should ramp up productivity, research and development, markets, training, private sector participation, and nutrition and food security.

Thus far, the ABP of the CBN has been affected by the low rate of loan repayment. According to the CBN, only N503 billion or 52.39 per cent of loans disbursed to beneficiaries under the scheme had been recovered as of the end of February this year. The CBN has disbursed N1.07 trillion to about 4.57 million smallholder farmers, out of which N960 million is due for repayment. Last year, the World Bank, in its 2022 Poverty and Prosperity Report, indicated that more than six million Nigerians enter the extreme poverty bracket as the number of poor people races towards 95.1 million. Also, Nigeria was ranked 103 out of 121 countries in the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI), a position that signifies that the country has a level of hunger that is serious and worrisome.