Preview
Now that the elections are here with us, this message is essentially an echoing reminder to the emergent political leaders: ‘there’s an urgent need to constitutionally realign the federating Nigerian states in order to empower and commission them to revamp all productive sectors, particularly the agricultural sector, towards diversifying the treasure base of the nation’.
During the first republic, Nigeria was not only self-sufficient in food production, she had abundant surplus that were exported to other countries, which generated foreign exchange earnings. The federating regions were constitutionally motivated to develop and retain 50% of the agricultural and mineral resources in their territories, and were only compelled to contribute the other 50% to the central government. That way, the citizenry fed sumptuously and the nation’s economy boomed.
Following the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 1967, however, our nation relegated agriculture to the background to the extent that today we are no longer able to feed ourselves neither are we able to meet our external trade obligations. For the same reason, our industries are down and can hardly create employment opportunities for our teeming youths.
Potentials
Nigeria’s agricultural resources are as vast as her climatic and soil conditions. Rainfall and temperature and soil conditions in the north are favourable to the growth of grains and livestock just as the weather conditions in the middle belt and the south of the country are favourable to the cultivation of shrubs and tree crops. Fruits thrive in different conditions and a diversity of meat can be derived through domestic and commercial animal rearing. There is hardly any state that cannot meet its food needs if given the right motivation to do so.
Nigeria used to rank first, second, third, fourth and sixth, respectively, in the production and export of agricultural commodities like Palm Oil/ Kernel, Cocoa, Groundnut, Rubber and Cotton in the whole world in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Today, export of these cited commodities is scarcely existent.
Nigeria is still today the world number one producer of Cassava and Yam, and has immense potentials to repeat same feat in the production of potatoes, corn, plantain, rice, wheat, vegetables and livestock. But we are a sleeping giant.
Progression
Given our abundant resources, there is absolutely no reason why Nigeria should be the poverty capital of the world; and there is no reason whatsoever why the bulk of the nation’s active labour population should be unemployed. Our past economic misery is evidently the result of yesterday’s delusion feast but if only we can repent and learn from past experience we can still get it right again.
Reflecting soberly, we must realize that the time to recommence action is now, given that it takes between three years to five years for the core export (mainly tree) crops like cocoa, oil palm, rubber and cashew to grow to maturity. The old trees are aged, so new ones need to be planted. Therefore, you can simply see that it’s still not going to be easy for the new regime to do any quick magic that would reverse our economic woes overnight. The implication of this is that we’ll still rely on (the fluctuating fortunes of) petroleum as our source of foreign exchange earnings for a long time to come. My projection is that if a new regime comes in and promptly kick-starts an ambitious export-oriented agricultural programme, it would spend its entire four-year tenure to achieve any realistic outcome. But at least recommencing late is better than repeatedly postponing the evil day.
The 3 action strategies that the federal government could adopt towards re-tapping the agricultural potentials of the country are: one, restructure the country through constitutional amendments, devolving more revenue-retention powers to the federating states; two, develop a national economic blueprint and mobilize the states to frame individual sub-national economic master-plans, incorporating investment-friendly agricultural/ industrial policies and incentives with provision for such innovative models as public-private partnerships; three, turn strategy into action.
