Thread by @Morris_Monye

1. Let me give you a history on Agricultural programmes from independence to date

I will try to simplify for your understanding

THREAD!

2. In the beginning shortly after independence (1960), there was rural and urban divide.

Poor people lived in the rural areas, comfortable people stayed in the urban cities.

As petro-naira flooded Nigeria, a great rural-urban drift began. This means people left village

3. To come to the city.

Lagos as the capital of Nigeria took a big hit.

People were happy to sleep under bridges or inside broken down vehicles - to await the arrival of good times.

For them, life in the city was infinitely better than village.

4. By the early seventies, the rural- urban drift was such a big problem that FG took notice.

Why did they take notice?

Agriculture was affected. Young men and women were interested in the city not village.

FG had to do something to revive agric and make it interesting

5. Nigeria had so much money and relied heavily on imports for rice, wheat, beef and poultry

As at 1981, food imports peaked at N1bn (now N900bn)

Obasanjo decided to do Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) in 1976

Its aim was for the elite to take up farming. His idea was that..

6. If people saw the elite farming, they would also see farming as a noble work and delve into farming.

Obasanjo also hoped the elite could introduce mechanised farming and change the face of Agriculture.

It worked.

7. People took interest in farming.

Every space was used for farming.

He set up the Agric Credit Guarantee Scheme to give financial assistance to farmers.

A problem began.

They favoured elites and ignored the actual peasant farmers that needed the financial assistance.

8. President Shagari succeeds Obasanjo and scraps OFN.

He brings his own initiative called "Green Revolution" in 1979.

Its sole aim was co-operative farming.

He set up the Nigerian Agricultural and Co-operative Bank in Kaduna around 1979.

9. Nigeria had 19 states then.

The Green Revolution program (GRP) started acquisition and clearing of large tracts of lands in all 19 states.

Now the problem...

Cooperative farming was a novel concept to rural areas.

They simply did not get it!

10. FG made no attempt to educate the people on what cooperative farming was

Rural farmers with their distrust for govt simply refused to take up the cleared lands.

They prefered their individual lands.

11. Contractors collected their money to clear lands, after awhile the cleared lands became bushes again.

It is worry of note that it sought to increase raw materials to ensure food sufficiency, boost production of livestock and fish etc...

Oh well...

Buhari struck!

12. Buhari comes and immediately scraps it.

He introduces "Go Back to Land" programme which aimed at making all Nigerians farmers.

An utterly bizzare programme which targeted all Nigerians to go to farming with no funding, little education on the know-how of farming

13. All Nigerians were to farm whether you knew/understood it or not.

Nigerians groaned...

Buhari was toppled and in comes IBB.

IBB (the evil genius) took a step back and decided not to do things the way its been done on the past.

14. IBB decided to create infrastructure like roads and water in the rural areas - He believed development and agriculture would come naturally if these places were opened.

And I agree with him...

So he formed the DIRECTORATE OF FOOD, ROADS AND RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE (DFRRI)

15. How would he fund it?

In a 1986 broadcast on NTA, he spoke of FG's decision to partially withdraw subsides on petroleum products. (Almost N900m)

This monies birthed the DFRRI

DFRRI went beyond food production, it targeted rural infrastructure

16. It excited the press and Nigerians who had people in the villages.

I mean everyone had someone in the village and development was good

The problems with DFRRI?

A. Corruption: Officials inflated budgets, ascribed other projects to themselves, gave contracts to friends etc

17. TO BE CONTINUED...

18. I HAVE RETURNED

B. Officials exaggerated claims of progress and even outright falsehood made people distrust and complain.

E.g They claimed to tar roads in your village but actual villagers there said there was no such thing.

19. C. Funding for the DFRRI came like this 75% came from FG, 15% came from the states, 7% came from the Local govts, and 3% came from the rural communities.

The other branches were reluctant to release any money for it claiming that FG should shoulder all the amount

20. D. The DFRRI took on too much at a time. They simply did not have the managerial capabilities to do all.

They wanted to do roads, info services, agric, community mobilisation, adult education, boreholes, private sector relations etc.

It was too much

21. By 1991, the country had spent N1.9bn (about N250bn in today's money)

People advised IBB to convert it to a ministry.

He refused.

He instead scrapped it and merged it with Ministry of water and rural development.

That was the end of IBB's agric move.

22. Now comes Abacha.

He forms FAMILY ECONOMIC ADVANCEMENT PROGRAMME (FEAP) in 1996.

The idea was not solely agriculture.

It aimed at empowering the woman (who was seen as the engine room of the home).

It encompassed health, agric, education etc

23. It eventually became Ministry of Women Affairs and social welfare.

Abacha died 1998.

The problem is still there...

Abdusalam comes in and does absolutely nothing in relation to Agric as it's a transition period.

24. The second coming of Obasanjo sees the formation of NATIONAL ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (NEEDS).

It sets up KPIs of 6% annual growth in agricultural GDP of $3bn per year on agric exports and a 95% food sufficiency for the country.

Ambitious right?

25. Very ambitious.

NEEDS offered farmers crop varieties, irrigation and state-of-the art machineries which would boost productivity and tackle poverty (Most of the poor are peasant farmers).

He also introduced STATE ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (SEEDS)

26. This was to give synergy between the federal and state govt.

All was going well and Nigeria flourished during Obasanjo vis-a-vis Agriculture GDP.

He went further and introduced NATIONAL SPECIAL PROGRAMME ON FOOD SECURITY (NSPFS) in 2002.

Its mandate was to increase food

27. production and eliminate rural poverty.

Started well then issues came up

Farmers did not pay back loans on time,

Most of the technology were too complex for the farmers over time,

Lack of modern storage facilities destroyed the efforts of farmers

Wahala!

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