Nigeria: The Road To Hunger Land

 By Adekunle Adekoya

There is a point you get to talking about the problems facing our dear nation that you just get tired. This is because the problems seem endless — from insecurity to unending rise in the prices of goods and services, especially food items, to the parlous state of our infrastructure, especially roads and electricity. In the midst of unreliable power supply, government is bidding to remove subsidy on electricity, which, from where I stand, amounts to making the people pay more for a service that they get just a whiff of.

Right now, methinks the greatest problem that we have to deal with is the growing issue of food insecurity; more able-bodied men are finding it herculean to put food on the table as the prices of staples — rice, garri, yams, beans, potatoes, others are becoming more unaffordable every day. That is in addition to sky-high prices of bread, fish, meat, pepper, tomato, onions and other groceries. But, with regards to food, it was clear, albeit a long time ago, that we will get to this point someday. Just that those in charge of our affairs continued to deceive us and themselves that all is well.

Those of us still brave enough and who find it unavoidable to make road journeys over long distances must have continued to wonder what we wanted to achieve by leaving most of our arable land fallow. From the Shagamu Interchange in Ogun State to Benin in Edo State for example, a distance of about 252 kilometres, what we see are vast expanses of arable land on which wild bush is growing, save for a few small plantations here and there.

Also, between Moniya near Ibadan in Oyo State to Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, the story is more or less the same, give or take a few mango and cashew plantations. If you take the Benin By-pass towards the Delta towns of Agbor and Umunede, a similar vista confronts the traveller. Save a few poultry farms, from Sagamu Interchange to Ibadan is equally bereft of any large scale agricultural activity.

For a country that has a rapidly growing population, majority of whom are youths, I dare say that our leaders, including businessmen have been remiss in their responsibility towards the rest of us, the led. There has been no planning, and thus, no action, to grow more food to take care of the growing population. Every state of the federation has a Ministry of Agriculture. The Federal Government also has one. Pray, what have we been paying successive ministers and commissioners of agriculture for? Over the years, It can now be seen that the commonwealth’s resources have been wasted on these officials. 

Available data indicates that Nigeria has an arable land area of roughly 36.9 million hectares. Of this,  6.6 million hectares were under permanent crops, while 25.2 million hectares were under permanent meadows and pastures. With this natural, God-given resource, why should we suffer food insecurity? Why can we be unable to grow enough food to feed our people, and even have more left to export to other countries? As in every other area of national life, the problem has been that of leadership at all levels.

At the sub-national level, state governors and local governments, since 1999, must take blame and be held responsible for this terrible situation. This is because the Land Use Act vests control of and allocation of lands in governors, but it seems interest is focused only on lands that have become choice real estate in key urban centres, not for agriculture. Besides, the governors are closer to the people and should  make adequate provisions for their welfare, which principally includes making food available. 

In the last eight years, the nation has had to contend with insecurity in the form of marauding herdsmen militias who have driven farmers off the farms, thereby crippling the little ability left to grow food. But, if large farms had been created in the past, much of the ungoverned spaces overgrown with bush which provide cover for the marauding herdsmen would have been cultivated and the cover offered would no longer have existed.

It would even seem that the power elite is confused about the situation as there does not seem to be any clear, co-ordinated response to the food famine in the land. In the wake of anti-hardship protests in Niger State a couple of weeks ago, the state governor banned bulk sales of foodstuffs from his state. 

Thus, truckloads on their way to destinations outside the state were seen being turned back. That was bad, and indicates shallow, poor response. So a farmer can no longer sell his crops in exchange for money? That action will only have the effect of wasting a lot of harvested food crops that cannot be sold, as it is doubtful if the people in the state alone can consume all that is produced within.

Now, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio was quoted as saying that state governors have each received the amount of N30 billion outside their normal allocations to assist them in ameliorating the food situation. If this is the case, then we have a lot to expect from the governors. 

Most of the staples come from crops that grow within a short time; many food crops are annuals. As such we must begin to see massive improvements in the food situation by year-end. That is if all hands go on deck to work on this, and the money does not get converted to dollars to fund proclivities outside the country.

*Adekoya is a commentator on public office