.As NEXiM boss charge anti-graft agencies to recover CBN agricultural intervention fund

As part of ongoing effort to boost food production in the polity, the federal government has mapped out strategies aimed at eliminating “portfolios and political farmers” nationwide.

The minister of State for Agriculture, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi made this known in Abuja at a special round table conversation on “the food price, the forex and the farmer” organised by the Progressive Forum to mark the 44th birthday of its leader, Mr. Ismaeel Ahmed,

The Minister who underlined the need to ensure the wellbeing of the citizenry assured that farmers would be accorded the support required to achieve maximum productivity of agricultural produce in the country.

The minister who decried over dependence on imported goods assured that fertilisers offered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would be made available to farmers during the rainy season.

He said: “This year we intend to start a programme that will highlight who are these people are, where they are located, what farming operation they do, so that we can key them in as verified genuine farmers, not the portfolios farmers, not the political farmers, not the fake farmers who come in with ten and thousands of hectares claim just to siphon whatever support government is making available for farmers, and at the end of the day on paper we are suppose to have massive production but in reality there is nothing to show for it.

“These have been part of the problems we met but the good news here is that based on our engagements with sub-nationals, almost all the state governments have agreed with us that it is time to banish anybody that is not a real farmer, who come and tap into what the government is giving to some real farmers who have genuine operations. That is a massive paradigm shift because the reality is before us now.

“In fact, one of the programmes we have started discussing is to make sure that we direct our attention to institutions that have massive lands on how to bring them into production. So we are currently receiving data from our various institutions, Universities, Colleges of Education, Secondary Schools and others across the country.”

The Executive Director, Business Development of the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Hon Stella Okotete called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam its searchlights on those who dubiously over N100 billion agriculture intervention fund.

Okotete also called for capacity screening test for aspiring governors in the country.

She said it is unfortunate that those who enjoyed government interventions, and rebates have failed to utilised the monies they collected when former President Muhammadu Buhari held away.

Acknowledging that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been overwhelmed with litany of corrupt cases, she maintained that it would not be difficult to trace the culprits since the monies were disbursed to them through commercial banks in the country.

Calling for a master plan to revive agriculture in the three tiers of government, the Delta born APC chieftain said it behooves states governors of the federation to take a cue from Governor Umaru Bago of Niger state who have put in place measures to revive agriculture in the state.

She added: “The federal government must stop smiling with the states and local councils by making sure they do the right thing. They must come up with a master plan like the way Niger state is doing. What is Rivers and Bayelsa states that collect more money than Niger state doing with their money in this regard?

“Somebody said we need to do capacity screening on our governors because alot of them are intellectually lazy. We need to draw up an agriculture master plan to boost agriculture in the country.”

Okotete who blamed insecurity and removal of fuel subsidy for high cost of food items called on Nigerians to embrace digital farming to ensure massive agricultural yield and food production.

Calling for the scrapping of the moribund Bank of Agriculture (BOA), she called on the authorities to create a new entity that could offer credit facilities to farmers as is obtained in China where there is food sufficiency.

Applauding the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso for restoring sanity in the foreign exchange market, she blamed over-reliance by Nigerians on imported goods for the fall in the value of the naira as against the dollar.

“When you have that pressure and everything is dollarized, we will continue to have the issue of a fall in the value of the naira. We must support local manufacturing. It is no rocket science. We are all an import-dependent country. We must support made in Nigeria products to address the challenge,” she noted.

Speaking at the event, the celebrant, Barrister Ismaeel, said the country need to know what the government is doing to stabilize the challenges of food and forex crisis causing hardship for Nigerians.