A professor of Agricultural Economics at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State and former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Gombe State, Olasupo Oyetoro Oladipo, spoke with our Correspondent, Adesoji Adeniyi, on national issues; Yoruba culture, and the forthcoming local council election in Osun State.
Is Nigeria better, 53 years after independence and 14 years of unbroken democracy?
From my own point of view, yes we are better off; yes we are worse off. We are not really better off but we could have been worse. The reason is simple. It is our own doing. It is caused by our greed.
We allowed foreign elements and influences to direct us.
The first major error or mistake we made was not promoting our own languages and, by so doing, we are not promoting our own culture and that led to our not promoting our development. We have been trying to find solutions to problems without really considering how the problems started, or how they occurred. We have become an ad hoc people that find solution to problems without considering how the problem occurred.
Though we have culture that handles problems, if we really used that to our own advantage; all the new things we have learnt should not be problem for us. Let us go back to the 1950s, when a farmer or the wife of the farmer wants to sell something, he or she doesn’t have to be there. He puts the goods on the road side; put a sample and the price. Anybody who wants to buy will come, take what he wants to buy and leave the money there. We have, however, lost that culture of trust, credibility, brotherhood, faithfulness which was our heritage.
In receiving foreign cultures, whether political or religions, we forgot that the base of our existence is our entity and our culture, and this is embedded in our language which is our means of communication. We are losing this culture; for example, we have lost parenting. We are no longer parenting, and when I hear people talk and I see them and I hear their name, I pity them a lot this is because the Yoruba make a culture of being able to tell the history of a person by the person’s name.
As a seasoned educationist and a technocrat, how will you describe the merger of schools by the Aregbesola administration in Osun State?
When we talk of merger of schools, what exactly are we merging?
In making education functional, you need a lot of tools and equipment which may be very expensive. But if you can have a centre where all these teaching equipment are assembled and you bring the children to learn at that place, if you call that merging, it is. Let’s go back to what we were in the past. When I was in secondary school, there were only 17 secondary schools in the entire Southwest and many of them were actually founded in the 50s. Osogbo Grammar School was one of them, founded in 1950 and so many of them. And we all came from every place to seek knowledge and obtain knowledge, and it was the crop of that generation that we have today.
Proliferation of schools without the necessary tools does not really help anybody. I mean we can have, if we are that rich, secondary school in every compound, but is it economically efficient? But it is economically efficient to have all the tools that make for good secondary education.
Can we even afford to have it scattered all over the place?
The educational system went bad because we had too many schools and were unable to equip them adequately. Education is expensive and requires equipment. Modern education requires expenses on all the modern amenities. If we do not merge, we will not be able to afford to give sound education to our children, who are the future of this nation.
What do you think can make Nigeria a self-sufficient and economically sustainable?
There is no nation that developed without first developing its agriculture. Britain developed and protected its agriculture. Germany, Japan, America and so many others did the same. It is when a nation is able to feed itself from its own products, and has produced enough to feed itself and export, that is when a nation can be said to be developed. A nation that is not food sufficient cannot develop.
One thing we have to know is that we should believe in small businesses and in cooperation. Cooperation is what brings success. We used to be one of the largest producers of groundnut and cotton. Do we still produce those things? We used to be the leading producer of palm oil.
Do we still produce enough for our own consumption? Why? It is because we have derailed. We want something that really does not belong to us.
We have become a nation of consumers, not of producers. Unless you produce and get income through taxing those products, there would be no development.
When you look at agriculture, you should not only look at it from production aspect alone. When you produce, you also have to process. When you process, you have to market. Any investment in agriculture is not lucrative unless you do all these things. Lucrative here is relative. One of the things we have to understand is our own investment behaviour. As a nation we are always in a hurry. We are always looking for instant returns, we want quick returns.
Agriculture has a term to complete before the returns start pouring in.
When you know that there is money in black soap, you start running about to sell black soap in the market, forgetting that that black soap has to be produced. You have to take care of the production sector and that is palm tree. You can’t plant palm tree now and expect to harvest in some months. It takes at least three years before you see anything, and before it becomes profitable, it will be after five years.
How do farmers have control over what they produce because there is the insinuation that farming is not lucrative?
We do not know our marketing structure. The farmers only think about the farm. There are processors, like those who make the gari and carry it to market, they are all agriculturists. Their life is dependent on the farm products which is the cassava in the case of gari, and that makes them agriculturists. Even the woman who roasts the gari and markets it, including the woman who sells food are all agriculturists. If you now look at the chain, the process system of agriculture, you can now see that it is profitable.
The person who has put all his money in setting up a palm plantation will only get about 30 per cent of the profit that is if he follows it up to the palm oil level. When you have the palm kernel, you should be able to have proceeds from it. There should be no waste. They are all used for different products. You will then see that it can be profitable.
Many of us are absentee farmers. We employ a farm manager and expect him to work for us; we have forgotten that the Yoruba does not have a culture of working for a salary. When you are working for somebody, you are actually planning how to own your own. He is working for you and getting his salary, but actually he is working and trying to set up himself and he doesn’t care whether you succeed or not. And that’s why we think farming is not profitable. That’s why we wait until we see somebody succeeding in a particular business and we all rush to that enterprise without knowing what he did before getting to that stage. We just saw the success and we jump there and invest our money. Then when we do not get the same results, we conclude that it is not profitable.
As an economist, we find ways to maximise profits by cooperative societies. For instance in poultry farming, they can come together to purchase or even produce the feed and this helps them to maximise profits. So, if you want to make agriculture profitable, the farmer must have control of the market and reward for his input.
So, where does the government come in?
The government comes in by ensuring affordability of inputs. The government should try to make fertiliser and other inputs to the farmers. The state government should put in place a medium where the farmers can apply for and get fertiliser instead of these things being hijacked only to be sold to the farmers at a higher price. They can monitor the farmers through extension workers, to ascertain the size of the farms and the quantity needed so that they don’t hoard it to resell it. This way the farmers will gain since the price will be more affordable to them. The government should make these inputs available, affordable and accessible. Also the government should ensure that all contractors that breach contract are taken to court.
In Osun state, one of the biggest problems of the farmers, including fish farmers, is flooding and this present government has been attempting to re-channel our water ways. let do it properly the way we are doing it. When we succeed and others see it, they will imitate us.
With the Osun State Government declaring Isese Day for the traditional religion worshipers some people believe the Aregbesola administration is promoting an idol worshipping. What is your take on this?
When a king is enthroned, he becomes the Oba for all, whether or not they support him. He takes decisions for all. Same thing applies to our leaders. There is no leader who only represents his religious or ethnic group. When he is seeking for votes, he does not only seek the votes of Christians or Muslims because he will represent them all. The composition of the people can be varied. No governor can decide to favour only his religious group. He seeks the votes of all, so he must represents the interest of all. What he does in his private life is his own business. A nation without a history has no future. We must realize that we came from somewhere. The African knowledge enables us to know and understand our land and develop our own technology to meet our needs. The hoe used in Nigeria cannot be the same used in America. Those who go to seek the traditional religious people’s help will continue no matter what you say. People joining secret cults and groups in search of protection will still exist. You cannot westernise some aspects of our culture. I was in Germany and I saw some people throwing some things at something wrapped in white while it was going down a river. And they said they were throwing all the failures and disappointments of the previous years, and these are whites. They still do this. You cannot throw your culture away.
Whether we are ashamed of ours, good or bad, we cannot throw it away. We hide our groups and turn it into secret societies instead of making it open.
Can the African culture survive in the face of these foreign bombardments and influences?
We, as Yoruba, need to re-establish the Yoruba culture. We need to re-establish the fact that we have a heritage which is our languages and culture. We are a people. We have to first appreciate what we own, instead of looking at other people’s things. When we get to the church, we talk about the pastor as if he is God. Is he? This is how we are derailing. We are making ourselves what we are not. What are we leaving for the future? When I say future, I mean our children.
What about our language? If you are Yoruba, you have to think and act like a Yoruba. The Yoruba is a dynamic person. Whatever foreign culture you visit, look at it and imbibe the part that bears similarity with the Yoruba. One thing about our governor is that unlike other politicians, he left other places where he could have been in money to come here and make changes. I said earlier that people don’t like to change. We have to change if we will continue to be Yoruba. As of now, we are losing that name. There’s hardly any house you go to where they speak Yoruba language to their children. If you see the French and the English man, they speak their languages but what has gone wrong with the Yoruba. Look at Aregbesola, he is trying to raise that generation of farmers that will be able to utilize modern facilities. Where in the world do you see somebody putting 17 subjects on the curriculum including computer, and they are opposing him for including the study of Ifa. Ifa is only one of the subjects.
There is Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and others. They don’t see that but they are all opposed to the study of Ifa. Yoruba will succeed. Yoruba will go back to its original prominence. Aregbesola is one leader who I can say is very much in line.
Local government election has always been generating controversies in the country, what do you think is responsible for this credibility problem?
I think the best solution is that when people finish voting, the votes should be counted and announced immediately. The time you leave the voting centres some ugly and funny things may happen. The person in the best position to rig election is the person that moves votes from where it is conducted to another place. But once the votes is counted and announced immediately at the voting centres and results displayed, the problem of rigging is half solved. This is why the option A4 is the best among others voting system in this country.
