A two-time former commissioner for Higher Education in Delta State, Professor Patrick Muoboghare, has warned that Nigeria is gradually sliding into acute food shortage if nothing was urgently done.
Prof Muoboghare further warned that what Nigerians are currently going through will be a child’s play by next year if the Nigerian government fails to provide security for farmers to return to their farmlands across the country.
He specifically called on President Bola Tinubu to ensure security of lives of farmers in agricultural states of Benue, Plateau, Kwara, Niger, Delta, Sokoto and others known for huge farm produce in the country.
He blamed the current food shortage in the country majorly on the activities of armed herdsmen, deplorable State of roads and absence of food processing plants in the country.
Prof Muoboghare gave the warning in a lecture he delivered at the 7th Southern Zonal Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) held at the PTI Conference centre Effurun in Uvwie, Delta State.
In a paper titled “Food Security And Sustainable Agriculture In Nigeria
how Achievable?”, Muoboghare, who is also the General Overseer of
Stepat Farms at Edjekota in Ogor town in Ughelli North LGA, demanded for a deliberate policy to address the issues of insecurity and good roads to transport produce to markets.
The former education commissioner charged the federal government necessary policies including buying off produce, concession of deplorable roads and flushing out of killers herdsmen from farmlands across the country.
He suggested, “I had said earlier that one of the roadblocks on the path of food production was farmer insecurity or lack of farmer security. The major source of that insecurity is the invasion and occupation of farmlands across the nation by foreign killer herdsmen. I laugh when politicians of the unpatriotic genre preach the sermon that force should not be employed in solving the problem of foreign killer herdsmen and foreign bandits. Here, they lie; the only way to deal effectively with an invasion force from foreign Lands is the use of maximum force that overwhelms the invaders to the extent that when the name, Nigeria is mentioned, they will be filled with fear. Those who preach the sermon of none use of force are the contractors of foreign invaders. There are only two options here: We either deal with them forcefully and decisively or we surrender our sovereignty to them and I will not be alive when the second option is adopted. Force begets greater force.
“There should be a deliberate policy of government to establish clusters of processing facilities for farm produce to
Add value
Increase Shelf life
Facilitate export.
“All efforts must be made by Federal agencies particularly in the Agric and export areas to encourage farmers to look at the export market with a view to earning foreign exchange for this country. The officers in these agencies must not be intimidating and arrogant but very encouraging and patriotic types who feel the pains of this country. Here I am talking about NAFDAC, Ministry of Trade and Investment, Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, NEXIM and all exports promoting agencies. All these agencies must be up and doing. In fact, their budget should be a percentage of what they had attracted into the system through the exportation of farm produce.
“The state of the Federal Road network passeth all understanding and it will appear as if one evil spirit employed the services of a dragon to dismantle the road network such that Nigeria has no road. Not just that we have no road, but that the situation is worse than the foot paths we had before they were upgraded to trunk ‘A’ roads.
“I believe very strongly that in 8 years, my friend, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu cannot muster funds needed to restore the Federal road network in the Mid-west Region alone. By the Mid-west we mean Edo and Delta. The people of this area are very passionate about the term Mid-west because that is the only Region or State to have been created constitutionally through a referendum and we do not throw that away. It will cost the Federal Government Trillions of Naira to restore the Federal road network in this region and I do not wish to encourage myself that the President and his Government have that money somewhere to be thrown at the region solely for the purpose of restoring the Federal road network.
” The situation is not different in the Eastern Region, Western Region and the Northern Region. Please let us forget this “patchy patchy” palliative work by the very enthusiastic and hardworking Minister of Works because they take us nowhere. The Federal road network is right now below surface level occupying a position between a pond and ground level. What to do? If I have identified that the road network is this bad and there is no way the Federal Government can muster the funds to fix same in 8 years, there must be an alternative.
“The Federal Government as a matter of urgency must humbly seek partnership with the private sector in the reconstruction and maintenance of the Federal road network, by offering very robust and attractive conditions. In other words, I call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to concession all Federal roads. Apart from saving our farmers and other road users, our youths across the country would be engaged on a continuous basis by the road sector.
“Federal Government must have a deliberate policy of buying up surplus produce by farmers.
“There is no Governor in Nigeria today who has less than 1000 Special Assistants and Senior Special Assistants. This is a very good way of saying thank you to mobilisers who in most cases are able bodied young men and women. An SA or SSA with a good pay but without a job description and whose character is unknown to the Governor is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes, they have been removed from the job market and I do not recommend that they be sent back to joblessness. It is my candid opinion that, considering the crisis in the Agric sector and the need for more hands, these SA’s and SSA’s should be deployed to the various Ministries of Agric where they will undergo intensive 6 months training in Animal Husbandry, Crop production, Study of soil types and Agric Extension which incorporate Agric communication. At the end of 6 months, these skilled workers/political mobilisers are deployed to the LGAs where they interact with farmers for a period of 3 years. Six months to the end of the Governor’s tenure, they are redeployed to the political arena to continue with their primary assignment of political mobilisation.”
Muoboghare urged President Tinubu not to pay lip service to the nation’s food security, adding that agriculture is too vital to the economy of any progressive country to be ignored.
“Agriculture is a gold mine that we have overlooked. It also the harbinger of peace that we disregard. Agriculture, apart from putting food on the table, is the feeder stock for giant industries that have the capacity to meaningfully engage our youths. If we act rightly as a government and a people, agriculture will earn so much foreign exchange for this country, to the extent that oil will be pushed to a distant second position as a foreign exchange earner.
“Disregarding or playing games with agriculture is nothing but a suicide mission. The Urhobo man says that a stick that a man sees does not piece him in the eyes. How can we see famine coming and yet it overwhelms us, when we have all it takes to conquer it? How can we choose poverty over wealth? Is our brain paining us?”, he queried.
