• Govs tasked with drawing master plans to boost state agriculture  

Those who dubiously ‘harvested’ billions of naira from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) agriculture intervention fund may not have long to hide.

This followed a disclosure by the executive director (Business Development) of the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Stella Okotete.

At a round table conversation on ‘The Food Price, the Forex and the Farmer’, in Abuja yesterday, Okotete called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to beam its searchlight on those who fraudulently partook of the fund.

The conversation was organised by the Progressive Forum to mark the 44th birthday of its leader, Ismaeel Ahmed.

Also at the event, Minister of State for Agriculture, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, disclosed moves by the Federal Government to eliminate what he called “portfolio and political farmers” nationwide.

Okotete, who called for a capacity screening test for aspiring state governors, said it was unfortunate that those who enjoyed government interventions and rebates failed to utilise the money when former President Muhammadu Buhari held office.

She said although the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is overwhelmed with a litany of corrupt cases, it would not be difficult to trace the culprits because the money was disbursed through commercial banks.

Calling for a master plan to revive agriculture in the three tiers of government, Okotete said it behoves state governors to take a cue from their counterpart, Umaru Bago of Niger State, who, according to her, has put in place measures to revive agriculture in his state.

“The Federal Government must stop smiling with states and local councils by making sure they do the right thing. They must come up with a master plan, the way Niger State is doing. What are Rivers and Bayelsa, which collect more money than Niger doing with their money in this regard?

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

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

Calling for a scrap of the moribund Bank of Agriculture (BOA), she urged the authorities to create a new entity that could offer credit facilities to farmers, as obtained in China, which she said has food sufficiency.

She also applauded CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, for restoring sanity in the foreign exchange market, even as she blamed over-reliance on imported goods for the fall in value of the naira to the dollar.

“When you have that pressure and everything is dollarised, we will continue to have the issue of a fall in the value of the naira. We must support local manufacturing. It is not rocket science. We are an import-dependent country; we must support made-in-Nigeria products to address the challenge,” she added.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Agriculture, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, assured that farmers would be accorded the support required to achieve maximum productivity in the country; and that fertilisers offered by the 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 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 portfolio farmers, not the political farmers, not the fake farmers who come in with claims of tens and thousands of hectares, just to siphon whatever support government is making available for farmers. And at the end of the day, on paper, we are supposed 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 who is not a real farmer, who comes and taps 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.”

The minister added: “In fact, one of the programmes we have started discussing is how to make sure we direct our attention to institutions that have massive lands; 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.”