The presidents of Commodity Associations of Nigeria, under the auspices of National Agricultural Commodities Project (NACP), have urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to appoint an experienced agriculturist as minister to effectively drive the agricultural sector.
According to them, if doctors and lawyers head the Health Ministry and Ministry of Justice respectively, it is not out of place for an experienced agriculturist to head the agriculture ministry.
The National President of Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Dr. Bello Annoor, who spoke at a programme organised by the NACP, said only an experienced agriculturist who is close to farmers could drive the sector.
Annoor said it takes an experienced farmer to identify the challenges farmers face and make efforts to address them.
“Whatever you are doing, if you don’t have the knowledge of what you want to do, there is going to be a failure. The reason we want one of our members picked as the minister of agriculture is because somebody who is an agriculturist and always with farmers, knows the problems of farmers and has experience in the agricultural value chain is supposed to head the agricultural sector.
“You cannot take an engineer to head the health sector or a doctor to head the judiciary. That is why we said that it is good for the agriculture sector to be managed by an agriculturist and an experienced person in the agricultural value chain so that they can identify the problems of farmers and make efforts to address them,” he said.
The National President of Carrot Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria, Ambassador John Aderibigbe, said NACP wants representation in Tinubu’s cabinet because they are the farmers.
“They are the ones in the grassroots and they know the pains of farmers. As farmers, we till the ground, we do so much. Sometimes we sell a basket of okra for N500. What else does the government want us to do that we have not done? Now we are asking for inclusion because this was also promised,” he noted.
Also, the National President of Spices Association of Nigeria, Dame Jummai Tabak, stated that the commodity association presidents came together to demand that one of them should be appointed as minister of agriculture because they know where it pinches them.
On her part, the National President of Ginger Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Chairperson, National Agriculture Commodity Project 2023, Dr. Florence Edwards, said: “We are presidents of different commodity associations. We came out because a lot of injustices have been done to Nigerian farmers. We are calling on the new government to look into the injustices by looking inward and picking one of our people as minister of agriculture.
“If a commodity association president is appointed as minister, if there is any problem in any corner, he will solve that problem with just one phone call. But if you pick a politician as a minister of agriculture, we will go back to the same pit that we are coming out from.”
