Op-Ed

By Ademola Yaya

BEFORE its flag independence, Nigeria was remained for the production of cash crops like palm oil, cocoa, groundnuts, coffee and cotton, with subsistence farmers across the land producing most food crops for local consumption. As a matter of fact, agriculture was the indigenous occupation in Nigeria. In the 1950s and 1960s, it contributed 85% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings; 90% employment generation; and 80% Gross Domestic Product. Under the Regional Government, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the Premier of the South-West Region, revenue realised from Cocoa was used to build Liberty Stadium, University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, amongst others. His counterpart in the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, used agriculture proceeds to build the famous Groundnut Pyramids, Kaduna Textiles that employed over 30,000 people, build Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, New Nigeria Development Company and construction of many roads.

With the discovery of crude oil at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta on Sunday, January 15, 1956 and the first commercial production in 1958, oil boom ensued. By 1960, subsistence farming was no longer profitable. This forced rural dwellers to leave their farms; thereby deserting working on farms where they had produced export crops while educated youth moved to cities for white-collar jobs. Consequently, prices of food items began to rise, which gave way to importation of foods.

With continuous exodus of people from the agricultural hinterland to the cities, prices of both locally produced and imported foods continued to rise. Hence, in May 1976, General Olusegun Obasanjo’s military government launched Operation Feed the Nation (OFN). OFN was a deliberate and calculated approach to solving Nigeria food problems via massive food production and introduction of modern technology and high-yielding seeds. The military government appealed to high schools, colleges and institutions to be self-reliant in food production by growing their own produce and selling the excess. Aircrafts were procured to spray pesticides; poultry chicks were distributed to farmers; agricultural estates were leased to farmers with extension support from the government. Massive publicity was given to raising interest in large-scale commercial farming with highly subsidised fertiliser.

In 1980, Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s civilian government replaced OFN with Green Revolution. The objective was the same – massive food production and introduction of modern technology with high-yielding seed varieties. After Shagari government, every successive administration has only paid lip-service to agriculture or economic diversification. We have abandoned either mechanised or subsistence farming to sole reliance on petrodollars.

In the 1960s till the 1990s, apart from government, textile mills were the second largest employer of labour. Where is textile today? Dead! How could our situation degenerate to the extent of borrowing 5,000 metric tonnes of assorted grains from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the peak of COVID-19 pandemic? We have so degenerated to the extent that we import handkerchiefs, toothpicks, cotton buds, etc. We even import the petroleum products, having exported the crude oil! Any country that finds itself in this pathetic situation should not expect its currency to be strong. It is not a curse; it will continually devalue.

Everything humanity requires to survive and make life a better place for man and animal comes from the land. The only ones that come from the sky are sun, moon and rain and they are still connected to the land.  Everything we install in outer space comes from the land. Apart from the air we breathe, the most important thing a man and animal need is food. Next to it is shelter, clothing, etc. It is an established fact that a reasonable nation will embark on mass production of goods and services and productivity optimisation in its areas of comparative economic advantage. We have fertile land, natural resource and clement atmosphere. What is required is federal, states and local governments’ deliberate programmes and policies on mechanised farming.

It is not a rocket science. We had done it under both military and civilian governments. To restart however, basic amenities that will make life comfortable in the rural areas must be guaranteed. There must be massive electrification and potable water, good road network, digital network for telecommunications, banks, recreation centres, schools, hospitals, playing grounds and standard fields for sporting activities, among others. Cocoa Research Institute, established in 1964 by the Federal Government, based in Ibadan with its six substations in six geo-political zones must be revitalised. Its mandates cover conduct of high quality research on cocoa, kolanuts, coffee, cashew and tea. We must have a working relationship and understanding with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan. It is a non-profit International Organisation founded in 1967 for agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s hunger, malnutrition and poverty challenge.

We are talking of mechanised farming with agro-allied processing industry, which will bring out real value of farming that can spark off chain of economic activities that will create millions of good jobs and generate billions of dollars as revenue to investors, employers and government. Apart from the fact that millions of job seekers are unemployable, the era of white-collar job is over.  Mechanised farming has capacity to absorb all unemployed.

To kick-start, students in all tertiary institutions, private and public, should be enlisted; corps members under the auspices of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and correctional centres should be enlisted; enlightenment programmes to co-opt the paramilitary and civil servants should be well publicised. It must be a deliberate government policy to revamp our pathetic situation. Petrodollar will not last forever. It is not even enough again. It is regularly being augmented with heavy borrowing internally and externally.

Movement back to the land must be so organised that rural dwellers will be reluctant to go to cities, except it is very compulsory, while city people will be attracted to going to the rural. We must open up all farm settlements across the nation. At a stage, there will be no fundamental difference, apart from the nomenclature, between the rural and the city.

In the last 20 years however, Nigeria has been consistently declining in its attitude to agriculture. In the 2021 budget proposal presented to the National Assembly, only 1.5% is allocated to agriculture, which includes N66billion, N3.1 billion and 110.2 billion for personnel, overhead and capital expenditure respectively. This is grossly less than 10% of the total annual budget specified for every nation in Africa by the 2003 Maputo Declaration, to which Nigeria is signatory, with a target to guarantee food sufficiency and security in Africa.

As we commemorate the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) World Food Day on 16th October, 2020, tagged “Grow, nourish, sustain. Together. Our actions are our future”, we should revisit agriculture. With appropriate funding to agriculture, millions of people can be lifted out of poverty with quicker economic growth. The ongoing EndSARS has revealed that we have army of youths who could be engaged in agriculture. Once hunger is resolved, tackling poverty is a slender matter. Once there is abundant food, which will be very cheap for local consumption and the surplus packaged for export, the value of naira will rise as it was in the good old days and the agitation for increase in workers’ salaries will be less. We should not wait for the sound of the final whistle. It is high time we started.

By Ismail Afolabi

From COVID-19 to #EndSars protests and now, mass looting, Nigeria will never forget year 2020 in a hurry. In the first quarter of the year, the nation was completely grounded. It was badly bruised and knocked down again just when it was getting out of pandemic, in the fourth quarter.

Rage engulfed the nation. Many souls were lost and properties destroyed. Gross dereliction of duties and responsibilities by government officials were in plain sight.

While legitimate actions against the avoidable hardship in the country are heroic, one is sad to note that what started as peaceful protests has snow-boiled into large scale looting and robbery.

Going forward, notwithstanding the aims of the agitations and display of rage, it is time to halt and reflect on the gains and the loss recorded so far. One doesn’t need to be an angle to know that the protests have been hijacked. What we are seeing today is beyond comprehension and a sad reality of our existence. The change we long to see is no change but a chain if we have to become another monsters to effect the change and cut loose from the monsters that are running the country aground.

We all have stories to tell and must begin to look inward. For instance, late last year, my laptop broke down. Then, I was working on a project and faced with a serious deadline that could make or mar my postgraduate studies. I hastily took the laptop to Agbowo in Ibadan. Days passed by without results even though I was ready to part with any amount to get the gadget working.

When it was clear that the engineer was hapless and could not fix the laptop, I decided to retrieve it from him. I gave him consultation fee and without delay, visited another engineer who appeared more “serious” and the laptop was fixed.

Against all odds, I finalised the pending task and therefore observed that the laptop was not functioning well like it used to. Out of curiosity, I took it to Osogbo and appealed to a friend to help ascertain what was wrong with the laptop.

I was shocked when my friend, a computer guru and engineer in his own right, told me that 1Gig RAM and some key components of the laptop had been removed. I wanted to get to the root of the matter and fight the madness but I had no clue as to who removed the hardware between the two engineers that worked on the laptop.

Let’s face it, a fellow Nigerian, not a politician or a member of the armed forces did that to me. To say the least, the disturbing realities and rot in the nation are systemic and reflections of who we are. No nation can develop beyond its values!

As it stands, the much desired attitudinal change and advocacy for value reorientation would not yield any result unless drastic actions are taken at all levels. And, before it is too late, the same energy being deplored by nitwits defending #Lekkishooting and those condemning the dastardly act should, without delay, be channelled towards addressing the rising cases of looting and robbery in the country. Just like violent protests and the #Lekkishooting, there is no justification for looting of private citizens’ hard-earned resources and the attacks on public properties.

Loyalty is Key, not only in Politics, but in all forms of relationship. Perhaps, it is in marriage that fidelity is most sacrosanct. Loyalty is not only indispensable but cannot be in percentages, it is needed always and in total.

Loyalty is staying faithful and true to a particular conviction, a set of convictions or a person. However, even in marriage that is like a sacred bond between two or more partners, a set of conviction still applies. These articles of faith, commonly called principles, are therefore the foundation of loyalty in all circumstances – or let us say in all normal circumstances.

Allegiance, loyalty, can be to institutions, organisations and nations. Swearing to the oath is a common ritual when individuals are being inducted to many such institutions, and citizens do sing their organisations’ and nations’ anthems and recite a pledge at important occasions. The underlying importance of loyalty is thereby established, from the family all the way to the nation; much else within political organisations and parties!

Sadly, in contemporary times, and especially in underdeveloped countries that offer little else to their citizens other than trials and tribulations, the core reason for loyalty is much often thrashed away, at all levels – family, organisations and country – as blind loyalty is demanded, often in exchange for material compensations in the face of dire threat to anybody displaying reasoned obedience. Unity and Fidelity, even in marriages, are on the basis of certain shared ideals, aspirations and dreams that two or more have come together to advance, ready to share the ensuing fortune and/or misfortune. Loyalty to a wife or husband, no matter what he or she eventually does or becomes after the union – to someone for instance that have become a wife or husband-batter, cheat, rouge and murderer – is no longer loyalty but sentimental illness. It is an ill wind that eventually blows no good to parties in the union.

The most powerful demonstration of unquestioning obedience, loyalty and faith is to Almighty God, Allah, as found in the story of Abraham, Ibrahim, in the holy books, with only some comparable instances in folklore, mythology and actual history. Even then, it was not a blind faith when critically examined, it is rooted in the solid principle of belief by Abraham in the infallibility, omnipotence and goodness of God at all times! Humans, purportedly created in the image and likeness of God, are not God and are hardly ever God-like. Therefore, any sensible human like yourself will candidly advise you not to show the same reverence and total submission you show to God to any human being, it is even believed ungodly.

How come then that majority of “Third World” leaders – family heads, community heads, heads of institutions, especially “leaders” in politics and government – expect total and unconditional obedience and loyalty, not minding how in tune the issues at stake are with the founding principles of the relationship? Even a University Head of Department, expecting sex in exchange for promised marks, expects unquestioning obedience from the student, else she be branded rude, disrespectful and disloyal, with threat of dire consequences! In this equation, the masses, poor, followers, members, subjects and the weak are usually the ones at the mercy of the elite, leaders, rulers, rich and the powerful.

For those who genuinely love the survival and prosperity of their marriages, communities, organisations, political parties and government more than they love their pockets and personal interests, they have a clear responsibility to be correctly loyal, and it comes with sacrifices. Being correctly loyal is to constantly revisit and remind yourselves of the founding convictions, manifestoes, ideals and regulations that bind all of you together in that union: leaders and followers, and balancing them with the matters arising – the instructions and projects being handed down at the moment. If they are all in line, you are duty bound to be faithful and obedient. If they are not, asking a few questions and requesting clarifications, with all due respect, can never be read by any member or leader who truly subscribes to the binding ideal and goals of the organisation as disloyal; if it is read as such, and repeatedly so, it is either time to move on or find like minds to rescue your organisation and reposition it.

Nigeria, for instance, like many organisations and parties, is in dire need of citizens who truly remember and are committed to the spirit and letters of our national anthem and pledge, and living up to the true meanings of a Federal Republic, which we are now only in name. It is high time we stood up and be counted. That is the only way our citizenship and posterity will be fulfilled.