The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • True federalism will discourage state agitators

    True federalism will discourage state agitators

    • By Sunday Olagunju

    Sir: In spite of the present harsh economic realities and the panoply of efforts being made by the Tinubu administration to combat and bring relief to all and sundry, agitators for the creation of new states are on the ascendancy. The agitators’ declared aim for demanding the creation of new states is the fulfilment of the principle of equity and balancing as a federation.

    The reasonable question to ask from the state creation Oliver Twists is how many states Nigeria have to create to satisfy those yearning for the principle of equality and equalization of status within Nigeria’s federal system of administration. With the current existing 36 states heavily dependent on federal allocation on monthly basis and which ipso – facto pre supposes their unviability, any further addition to the present 36 states is a clear act of political indiscretion.

    Read Also: EFCC fires two staff over corrupt practices

    One of the main reasons Nigerians  are advocating for restructuring is to ensure the viability and profitability of the existing states; to set them free to have control over their resources and by working hard, to harness their potentials, human and natural, to keep afloat financially. Doling out monthly allocations from the Federation Accounts seems to have kept these states inactive and unthinking; in addition to giving the wrong impression to people agitating for new states that if all is well with the existing states, it will also be well with theirs if, and when, created.

    The present administration should set in motion true federalism through legislative action and make the states to fend for themselves rather than depending on allocations that have kept the state governors on holiday, while the federal government bears the brunt of thinking how to generate money to run Nigeria, including for its unviable brides that contribute nothing.

    With true federalism, states will spend what they are entitled to by allocation and states that find it hard to cope will live within its earning and resources. Presently, state agitators are basing their demand on federal allocations and this is politically wrong and incompatible with true federalism which emphasizes the principle of work and pay. The present pseudo federalism encourages Father Christmas and which is antithetic to true federalism. Nigeria is not a banana republic that creates splinter states that lacks viability and purposefulness of existence.

    •Sunday Olagunju,

     Ibadan.

  • On some states’ lost bid to scrap EFCC, NFIU

    On some states’ lost bid to scrap EFCC, NFIU

    • By Kene Obiezu

    Sir: When an initial 19 states quivered their way to the Supreme Court, quarrelling with the establishment laws of the EFCC, ICPC and NFIU, the quest was to cause a quake, to get the apex court to annul the laws establishing the bodies, and free the country of their nuisance which had become especially noisome to the political establishment.

    When the Supreme Court drew from its quintessential quill in judgment, on Friday, November 15, it was in evisceration rather than endorsement of the suit filed by the states. By the time the last lines of the judgment lacerated the folly of the contending states, it was clear that another wild goose chase had embarrassingly come full circle.

    It is no surprise that Kogi State led the comical charge to cut down Nigeria’s crime-fighting agencies. The former governor, Yahaya Bello, is on trial for stealing billions of public funds during his eight years as governor. It is telling that the biggest impediment to his trial is the state government and the governor, his predecessor in office, whom he foisted on the state.

    In Nigeria today, despite cross-class involvement, corruption remains a luxury for the rich. Those who wiggle their way into public office help themselves indiscriminately and shamelessly to public funds, using anything and everything to cover their tracks.

    Nigeria’s charade of federalism gives state governors unrivalled control of the resources of their states. Cocooned in their states and indifferent to the poverty consuming their people, many of them soon unleash their inner tyrants and brigands on the states.

     They ride roughshod over the judiciary and legislature, administer local governments like their personal fiefdoms, and effectively convert state agencies into rewards for their cronies. Not content with their excesses, they also administer public funds like their personal disposable income. Over the years, the effect of this practice of rampant predation on state resources is the incurable stagnation festering in many states today.

    The federal government usually takes the slack for Nigeria’s lack of development because the buck stops at its table, but it is for Nigerians to hold their state governors accountable for the lack of development in states. Nigerians in the states involved in this farcical rush and dash for the Supreme Court to defang the EFCC, ICPC and NFIU, must ask their governors what, and if, they really have any plans for them.

    Read Also: ICPC tracks N610b constituency, executive projects in 22 states

    Corruption is the singular, biggest reason, why Nigeria hasn’t reached its true potentials as a country. Many of the brains behind the barnstorming corruption that has wrecked what would have one of the world’s model countries have been state governors who carefully file their teeth with the salt of state resources before biting into the national cake. It has become clear that they must be stopped.

    While public office holders craftily devise new means to deepen corruption and escape checks put in place by law, younger Nigerians on whom the lot of leadership will fall tomorrow must learn lessons and take notes, as they prepare for a future marked by the plunder of public funds.

     Corruption remains a chief driver of inequality in Nigeria. Through 64 years of independence, and 25 years of democracy, it has pushed many Nigerians to the precipice of peril, while fattening an astoundingly avaricious few. Its ruinous rampage across many years of Nigeria’s existence has to be checked.

    Now that the apex court has buried the dreams of those seeking to put them out of business, the EFCC, ICPC and NFIU must cast off their ineptitude, and combat what, together with insecurity, is Nigeria’s greatest challenge.

    • Kene Obiezu,

    keneobiezu@gmail.com

  • Non-kinetic weapons to defeat Lukarawa terrorists

    Non-kinetic weapons to defeat Lukarawa terrorists

    • By Osung Edet DSP

    Sir: Collaborative intelligence and community policing, if well-coordinated, can be a very active and successful non-kinetic weapon to defeat Boko Haram and Lukarawa terrorists. Intelligence is a product of (information, rumour and grapevine) stories that have been treated professionally. Mind you – ordinary information is not yet regarded as intelligence until it is treated by trained brains and minds. Grapevine stories, rumours and ordinary information – when gathered, analyzed and processed can give birth to intelligence. Intelligence is a credible information with credible facts and figures that can assist law enforcement agents to apprehend offenders or launch lawful attacks on criminals.

    When the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigeria Police, DSS, NIA and others share such intelligence and synergize together, terrorist like Lukarawa, Boko Haram etc would have nowhere to hide. This activity is aptly known as collaborative intelligence. The Lukarawa terrorist group is not new in Nigeria as it is widely published now, they have been around in Nigeria with late Abubakar Shekau in the Boko Haram camp. They later had a clash over supremacy and some of the terrorists went and pitched their tents with ISWAP while others chose to roam about as Fulani herdsmen.

    The so-called vicious, wicked Fulani herdsmen armed with AK-47 Riffles are not Nigerians as we wrongly believe because of ethnicity/our tribal sentiments tearing us apart. Most politicians, elites and rich men arm these dare devil Lukarawa – as their herdsmen. Lukarawa terrorists are from Chad, Niger Republic, Mali and other Sahel area of Africa. Boko Haram, bandits and insurgents brought some of them in as mercenaries. The intelligence community could not recognise them because they hid their true identity. Now that they brazenly made their identity public – tongues are wagging – that there is now a new terrorist group. They are not new in Nigeria!

    Read Also: EFCC fires two staff over corrupt practices

    Community policing can also be a veritable non-kinetic weapon against terrorism and criminal activities. Community policing is one of the misunderstood terms and activity – even amongst some senior police officers. Community policing is not Local Government Authority Police or State Police as being canvassed by politicians. It is not (special constabulary) that is employed for part-time or weekend work. Community policing is a philosophy of ACTIVE partnership and collaboration – by law enforcement agents with local or host community – for the purpose of maintaining law and order/apprehension and prosecution of criminal elements.

    Such partnership by way of collating criminal information, rumours, grapevine stories and giving same to law enforcement agencies is part of what constitutes community policing. Members of the local communities know where criminals live, they know where criminals frequents and their hiding places. If they courageously volunteered and give such information out, terrorists, bandits and insurgents, etc will have no hiding place.

    However, the law enforcement agents need to be trusted and their integrity not questionable. Lack of trust is one of those reasons the local communities refuse to collaborate with law enforcement agents.

    Those who do not understand the difference between asymmetric warfare keeps on blaming the military and the police for the prolonged war with terrorists. Asymmetric warfare situation differs from conventional warfare. Terrorists explore that to their advantage. Terrorists cannot withstand Nigeria’s military forces in conventional warfare setting.

    I want the general public to take note that with the political will and financial support of President Bola Tinubu government, the Nigerian military are daily neutralizing terrorists, bandits, insurgents etc. in Northwest, Northeast and entire nation.

    •Osung Edet DSP (rtd.)

    Abuja.

  • Reforms and respiration

    Reforms and respiration

    Disturbing figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated relentless inflation in the country. According to its latest Consumer Price Index report, month-on-month food inflation rate, for instance, increased in September, notably affecting prices of staples such as rice, maize, beans, and yams. There were also significant price increases in housing rentals, transport, and medical services.

    Responding to the NBS report, the Director of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, was reported saying, “The reality is that the dynamics driving inflation are yet to be effectively subdued.” He observed that these factors include “the depreciating exchange rate, surging fuel price, rising transportation costs, logistics and supply chain challenges, high energy cost, climate change including resultant incidents of flooding, insecurity in farming communities and structural bottlenecks to production.”

    Taming inflation demands tackling these challenges, which are mainly the consequences of reforms introduced by the President Bola Tinubu administration.  The World Bank recently said the reforms were crucial for the country’s long-term stability. “Turning back or opposing the reforms would only make things worse,” said Ndiame Diop, World Bank country director for Nigeria, at the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU) report in Abuja.

    Read Also: EFCC fires two staff over corrupt practices

    Predictably, the World Bank’s position drew public criticism in a country struggling with a crushing cost-of-living crisis. However, Diop added that the ongoing reforms “must be accompanied by reforms enabling the private sector to create more and better jobs. With targeted support to youth and women.” This was a way of saying that the hard results of the Federal Government’s reforms can be softened. The World Bank report also noted the need for structural reforms, such as reducing trade barriers, improving infrastructure, improving the business environment and supporting household businesses for inclusive growth.

    If the ongoing reforms were inevitable to achieve a better future for Nigerians, the authors and promoters of the reforms should understand that it is counter-productive to carry out such reforms without considering and implementing sufficiently ameliorative measures.

    The alarmingly deteriorating cost-of-living crisis in the country is a bad advertisement for the Federal Government’s reforms. It is important to ask what the three levels of government have done, and what they are doing to save Nigerians from hardship occasioned by the reforms.  They are expected to urgently find solutions to the cost-of-living issues in the spaces they govern. 

    No argument that reforms negatively impacting Nigerians are a necessary means to a positive end will make sense if the people can’t breathe.

    This article was first published on October 21, 2024 

  • Obasanjo’s journey in self-glorification

    Obasanjo’s journey in self-glorification

    By Richard Odusanya

    Sir: On November 15, President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University, sharing his insights on such topical issues as leadership, governance, and Africa’s development.  Obasanjo emphasized the importance of effective leadership, accountability, and transparency in Africa’s development. Furthermore, he stressed the need to combat corruption, citing it as a major obstacle to progress in the African continent.

    Obasanjo’s address, no doubt, benefited from his extensive experience as a leader/statesman. His call to action obviously resonated with the audience, particularly among African youths. He demonstrated a deep knowledge and understanding of Africa’s challenges and opportunities.

    However, some critics opined that Obasanjo’s address offered few new or innovative solutions.

    Selectively, he glossed over his own tenure which was marked by controversies, the lack of accountability, corruption, profligacy, recklessness, and the attempted unconstitutional elongation of his legitimate two-term tenure.

    No doubt, Obasanjo’s legacy remains a topic of heated debate among Nigerians. Many question whether he deserves the heroism he seeks, especially considering those controversies that dogged his administration vis-à-vis the perceived underperformance of subsequent regimes. Critics argue that Obasanjo’s self-portrayal as a hero is exaggerated and that his actions were often driven by personal interests rather than the nation’s well-being.

    Some of the other concerns raised about Obasanjo’s heroism include his questionable military record. Here, General Alabi-Isama (rtd), a fellow military officer, has disputed Obasanjo’s account of his military achievements, accusing him of lying about his role in the Nigeria-Biafra war. Obasanjo’s administration was marked by authoritarian tendencies, including the persecution of opponents and the suppression of dissenting voices. Critics argue that Obasanjo’s economic policies, including the privatization of state-owned enterprises, benefited his cronies rather than the Nigerian people.

    Read Also: ResQ Health offers free breast cancer screening for 500 women

    Given these concerns, it’s understandable that many Nigerians are sceptical about Obasanjo’s views including his claims of heroism. Some even view his attempts to portray himself as a hero as a desperate attempt to rewrite history and distract from his flaws. Ultimately, whether Obasanjo deserves heroism is a matter of personal opinion, but it’s essential to critically evaluate his legacy and consider multiple perspectives.

    His address at Yale University has further increased the level of agitation on failed leadership and failure to address challenges. Recall that the Obasanjo administration was criticized for its handling of the economy, with policies that benefited his inner circle rather than the Nigerian people. So also were his attempts to amend the constitution to extend his presidential tenure were widely seen as a power grab. The conduct of the 2007 elections under his watch was marred by electoral malfeasance.

    Many would equally argue that Obasanjo’s speeches and addresses lack fresh ideas and innovations and so offer nothing new, merely echoing the same old populist criticisms of the country.

    Obasanjo should, as an elder statesman, be humble, and call for unity and progress rather than perpetuating self-justification and glorification. He should acknowledge his shortcomings and propose a way-forward. Nigeria’s growth and development require collaborative efforts, not individual aggrandizement.

    Moving forward, Nigerians are determined to build a better future despite the distractions of Obasanjo’s self-promotion. By focusing on innovative solutions and collective progress, the country can overcome its challenges and achieve greatness.

    The responsibility of nation-building rests squarely on the shoulders of all of us. It behoves us to find a viable remedy for our ailing nation.

    • Richard Odusanya odusanyagold@gmail.com

  • Multichoice, multi-laments

    Multichoice, multi-laments

    For DStv, which content name goes by MultiChoice, it’s multi-laments — and about time too!  Same goes for Gotv, the “dog” — in marketing parlance — thrown at competition, at the low end of the market, to preserve its premium DStv brand.

    DStv/Gotv just announced that it lost 243, 000 subscribers within six months — as at September ending.  The response from the seething market has been predictable — good riddance!  That’s hardly surprising for DStv/Gotv are not the most popular brands in town!

    Now, DStv is an operational monopoly — operational because no law bars competition from giving it a stiff fight for market share.  But since the collapse of HiTV, competition has been feeble, if at all.  For that, DStv has strutted its near-sole giant market dominator status as some Hercules — with no less giant hubris!

    First, its cavalier billing attitude.  No matter how clean and faithful your subscriber record and history are, DStv yanks you off, that very second your subscription is off — no story.  No empathy.  Just grab the money and go — was that why DStv named its low end of the market brand Gotv?

    Read Also: Medical Council approves Badagry General Hospital for Housemanship training

    Then, that hubris to just raise subscriptions at whim, thumbing its nose at wailing subscribers!  When DStv gets into that mode, no one matters — not the subscribers that sustain it, not the judiciary that tries to adjudicate fair deals for everyone. 

    DStv would have its way and everyone else can go to hell.  No wonder, a piqued subscriber base is telling DStv to go to hell too, in its hour of need! 

    Though the South African company’s subscriber loss wasn’t limited to Nigeria alone — it also posted a subscriber loss in Zambia, with indifferent growth elsewhere — Nigeria is its biggest market. So, that cut runs deep.  Which makes it strange why DStv often takes its Nigerian subscriber base for granted — and in many areas.

    First, it rains down product adverts and  warns of dire consequences should subscriptions lapse, like some harsh village headmaster.  But it seldom does any worthwhile pitch on subscriber appreciation.  Besides, on the technical plain, at the slightest hint of rain, its signals vanish!

    Then, the very offensive Southern African clannishness!  Before the last Olympics, only athletes from that belt were good enough for pre-Olympic promotions.  DStv has a penchant for what looks like black-on-black apartheid.  Its sports promotional choices almost reflect the notorious xenophobia of post-Apartheid South Africa, against Nigerians especially, even if Nigeria stood firm with South Africa, in its painful years of white minority rule. 

    Reversed but aggressive inferiority complex?  It’s really nauseating!

    Still, blame less DStv that often behave like fortune cowboys, with the collusion of their Nigerian partners.  Blame more the industry regulators that have been too lazaire-faire about content. It’s time to read the riot act.  MultiChoice must stop injuring Nigerian viewing sensibilities, while Nigeria remains its cash cow.

    To win back its Nigerian market, DStv has to undergo a vigorous attitudinal change.  Right now, the market is not smiling.  So, it won’t be a swift paradise regained — if any.

  • Today is World Toilet Day

    Today is World Toilet Day

    Sir: Deprived of toilets where they can deliciously embrace one of nature’s most delicate demands with dignity, they make take up positions everywhere. Water channels, under bridges, bush paths, road sides and basically every inch of public space available is claimed by Nigeria’s army of the toilet-less.

    This tribe of the toilet-less is one without shame, privacy, and dignity. It is doubtful that one can find a more scandalous stamp of poverty than this.

    Nigeria’s quest to end open defecation in the country is one that has repeatedly run into man-made but mountainous roadblocks, namely: inadequate toilets. According to the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Professor Joseph Utsev, the country needs about 11.6 million toilets to end open defecation by 2030.

    Today, November 19, marks the World Toilet Day, with the theme: “Toilets—a place for peace.” Nigeria has a nationwide 2030 Open Defecation-Free Target.

    In many ways, open defecation is a national problem. There are safety issues all round. For women, exposure to sexual exploitation is increased without access to toilets. There are health challenges too. A country already burdened by a broken healthcare system is certainly put under the cosh by the clear and present dangers presented by open defecation.  For one, the pollution of water channels leads to the rise and spread of diseases like cholera to which children are most vulnerable.

    The environmental pollution, especially air pollution inherent in open defecation, is also a national scourge. How about the immeasurable haemorrhage of dignity that accompanies open defecation? That people do not have the privacy or facility to carry out one of nature’s most urgent and basic demands is unacceptable.

    That many people who are pressed are also deprived is a tragedy. This lack of adequate toilets is a fall out of the housing and planning crisis Nigeria is gripped by. Many residential buildings and some public buildings are designed without adequate and sustainable provisions for sanitary facilities.

    Among Nigeria’s poorest, many of whom are cramped into squalid overcrowded settlements, toilets are at a premium, bringing in a whole barrage of health and safety hazards. This simply cannot be allowed to continue. Open defecation poses the greatest danger to children. For their sake, it must be fought tooth and nail.

    Furthermore, it is clear that Nigeria must also take a courageous stand against the shylock landlords who build houses, charge exorbitant rents, but neither have the dignity nor the decency to provide enough sanitary facilities for their tenants.

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    Tackling open defecation is easier said than done, though.  Nigeria’s housing crisis directly feeds the health hazard that open defecation is. Quality housing unfailingly includes sanitary facilities to cater for one of man’s most primal needs. 

    Many times because people are forced by poverty to live just about anywhere, with many of those shelters lacking clean toilets. Nigeria’s many homeless people also make do with whatever open space they can find.

    Open defecation is a health hazard as well as a social crisis. It cannot be combatted without fixing housing, which is one of man’s basic needs.

    If open defecation is to be eradicated too, water has to be fixed. If people have access to clean toilets and sufficient water, it is doubtful that they would jettison hygiene, privacy and safety when answering nature’s call.

    Every Nigerian has a right to dignity of the human person. Open defecation directly erodes this dignity. Combating it is a restorative action towards the dignity of all those affected.

    •Kene Obiezu,keneobiezu@gmail.com

  • Abia’s laudable initiative

    Abia’s laudable initiative

    Sir: Nigeria’s quest to confront what is a spiraling crisis in the education sector was always going to be an uphill task without government commitment and adequate political will. As the chief funder and operator of the education sector, the government’s input and priority list showing where education fits is a pointer to the achievements and expectations in the sector.

    In its bid to boost education in the state, the Abia State government has declared that education will be free from primary to junior secondary school levels.

    According to Okey Kanu, who is the state commissioner for education, education from primary school to junior secondary school  will be free and compulsory throughout the state, and parents and guardians who deny their wards the opportunities under new policy will be prosecuted under the Abia State Child Rights Law of 2006.

    For years now, the rising number of Nigeria’s out-of-school children has become simply frightening. The numbers which are especially high in the North point to more profound problems in the country while promising future problems.

    As insecurity has debuted on the scene to complicate Nigeria’s convoluted difficulties with poverty, the many groups hounding Nigeria from all sides have found an inexhaustible pool of conscripts in Nigeria’s unemployed, and out-of-school children. This has proven a slippery slope as Nigeria has rallied to confront what is a burgeoning concern.

    When children stay out of school, enormous resources are wasted instead of saved. A country that allows many children to stay out of school is a country wasting away its future and promise.

    Prosecuting parents and guardians will be a disincentive for those who see their children only as more mouths to feed and more hands for the farm.

    The truth, however, is that no parent can  fully focus on the business of providing quality education to their children if they are crushed by the burden of providing food, shelter as well as healthcare for their  children.

    The more prosperous a society becomes, the likelier it is to provide quality education for its children. In turn, quality education feeds economic prosperity and advancement, as no society can grow without enlightened citizens.

    It is clear that giant strides are being made in Abia State by a governor who mustered the support of the people during the last election to demolish a decades-long hegemony on power. A country that doesn’t pay attention to the education of its children is one which digs its grave with its hands. It is only a matter of time.

    •Ike Willie-Nwobu,Ikewilly9@gmail.com

  •  Ajaokuta and an aborted dream

     Ajaokuta and an aborted dream

    • By Ike Willie-Nwobu

    Sir: The Ajaokuta Steel Company is a multi-billion dollar steel company expected to be the bedrock of Nigeria’s industrialization. As a company and a metaphor for failure, the Ajaokuta Steel Company continues to defy Nigeria, defining with stark clarity the reason Nigeria has found it so difficult to properly kick off its industrialization.

    For every administration that comes into power, evoking the Ajaokuta Steel Company is a ritual and rhetoric. Every year, the government talks about reviving it to give Nigeria a spine for what it needs most: industrialization. Yet, nothing always happens.

    The latest to evoke Ajaokuta is Khalil Halilu, Executive Vice Chairman of National Agency for Science Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI). According to him, reviving Ajaokuta is central to the government’s industrialization agenda, and it is top priority.

    A major reason Nigeria’s provision of adequate infrastructure for its citizens either stalls completely through the years or completely or being scandalously slow through the years is the general climate of confusion among those who make key decisions. Key questions like what projects to embark on, how to fund them, and whether they are sustainable eventually don’t usually receive the brainstorming they deserve resulting in poor decisions.

     There is also the problem of corruption which typically sees funds for projects embezzled or diverted, resulting in no work done, or shoddy jobs at best.

    Read Also: Obasanjo’s comment on Tinubu mischievous, says Afenifere chief

    A source of constant irritation and frustration for Nigerians in this is that Nigeria is not without models, exemplary countries that are exemplars it can look up to.

    Countries like Singapore and Malaysia have shown what single-minded, visionary leadership can do. It is gravely concerning that Nigeria, typically so eager to copy nebulous ideas from other countries, is reluctant to imitate some of the countries pushing in the right direction despite backbreaking challenges.

    While the Ajaokuta Steel Company lies moribund, calamitously dragging the country down the precipitous path of underdevelopment and stagnation, many young people who would be gainfully employed were the company churning out gains are drowning in the sea of unemployment where the sharks of different crimes, including terrorism, are eager to swallow them whole.

    Nigeria has not seen requisite return on its investment in the Ajaokuta Steel Company. Many Nigerians have been born, lived, and died without enjoying any benefits from what is supposed to be a source of pride for Nigerians. This is simply unacceptable.

    The grinding poverty that continues to suffocate Nigerians cannot give way without industrialization. Steel is central to industrialization efforts. A country which speaks about industrialization and development while allowing its premier steel company to lie in ruins is one conjuring up national deceit and dissatisfaction.

    •Ike Willie-Nwobu,

    Ikewilly9@gmail.com

  • Time to prepare for the rice revolution

    Time to prepare for the rice revolution

    • By Abdu Abdullahi

    Sir: The national treasurer of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria ( RIFAN), Sadiq Daware has provided a diagnostic basis for the inevitable rice revolution in Nigeria with his estimation of over 12 million rice farmers cultivating an average of 0.5 hectare for two or three farming cycles annually, with an average output of four metric tonnes per hectare.

    To go beyond this impressive statistics, the revolutionary side is converting the figures to improvements in outputs, mass participation, sophisticated innovations, and massive investments by both the government and private sector for Nigeria’s economic development.

    We should draw inspiration from China, India and Indonesia, the largest producers of rice in the world. We ought to learn how the rice revolution tremendously impacted on these countries with amazing performance in rice production. This has made rice to be one of the most important staple crops in Asia and Africa. In Nigeria, for instance, rice is consumed across all geo-political zones and socioeconomic classes.

    However, only about 57% of the 6.7 million metric tonnes of rice consumed annually is locally produced, leading to a supply deficit of about three million metric tonnes. Nevertheless, the rice market is expected to show a volume growth of 8.8% growth in 2025.

    As we battle with economic conundrum related to oil, the need for economic diversification is long overdue and severally advocated, only to end at the periphery of endless discussion without any tangible outcomes. We are endowed with the fertile land for intensive and extensive agricultural activities. The northern Nigeria in particular serves as a potential zone for the rice revolution.

    Our rice revolution can make its debut in the effective management of land fertility, vastness, capital and labour, which can be harnessed to enhance our food security and improve the scope of the economy.

    The rice revolution can take different approaches and dimensions. But a particular and result-oriented scheme of rice farming that creates large scale production is the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), an approach developed by Fr. Henri de Laulanie in Madagascar in 1983.

    The SRI is evidence based, doubling yields. A small holder farmer in northern India, Sumat Kumar, used SRI to produce 22.4 tonnes of rice from a single hectare in 2012, breaking the world record. When SRI is adopted as a revolutionary strategy for rice production, it takes into consideration, the local conditions and requirements based on four interacting principles: early, quick and healthy plant establishment; reduced plant density; improved soil conditions through enrichment with organic matter; reduced and controlled water application.

    The SRI methods have been used in 47 countries and the overall results are impressive, 40% increase in yields, 40% reduction in cost, 23% reduction in water use, 68% increase in household incomes. Therefore, the proper application of the SRI provides a farming template for the success of the rice revolution in Nigeria.

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    Undoubtedly, the rice revolution can create employment opportunities, increase production and consumption, reduce the level of poverty, ensure food security and save Nigeria foreign exchange.

    Interestingly, the rice revolution which began in tropical Asia (i.e. South and Southeast Asia) more than a half-century ago had resulted in dramatic increase in rice production in 1970s and 1980s.

    For us in Nigeria, it is time to transcend the failed ‘Operation Feed the Nation’ and the ‘Green Revolution’. It is time for the authentic revolution to feed the nation at affordable prices.

    Of course, we know of big challenges confronting our efforts in rice production such as the change in climate, resource scarcity, exerting pressure on our capacity. Nevertheless, collaboration between the federal and state governments can serve as a panacea to food insecurity and climate change affecting rice production.

    The rice revolution is a deep temptation which should not be allowed to collapse. When actualised, we would be proud to be counted as one of the leading countries in rice production.

    •Abdu Abdullahi,

    Ringim, Jigawa State