TheCable

Alongside the rice pyramids recently exhibited by the Buhari administration to underscore the success of its agricultural policies, there should have been a wheat pyramid as well. Just as the government has spent so much to raise the level of rice production in the country, the same was also expended to make Nigeria a wheat-producing country.

It is not far-fetched to understand why we need to be self-sufficient in wheat production in the country.
Like most countries in the world, Nigerians consume a lot of flour-based foods. Bread and pastries in various forms constitute easily one of the most popular in-demand dietary requirements across the country and among all classes of Nigerians. Wheat which is the main ingredient for making bread and pastries is imported largely in the country. The brewing and beverage industries make use of wheat for their products which range from beer and malt drinks as well as popular beverage brands.

A tally of the amount of money Nigeria spends on wheat importation runs into billions annually. It makes no sense to spend such huge amounts of money to import a commodity that could easily be produced here in Nigeria.
To pursue self-sufficiency in wheat production the government has identified several states where wheat could be produced and among those Kano and Jigawa have the capacity to produce the entire wheat needs of the country.
Had the efforts by the government in boosting local production of wheat gone according to plan, we should really have been celebrating a vastly improved wheat situation in the country as we are doing with rice now. But this will probably not come to due in no small measure to the failure of the government agencies saddled with the task of delivering this noble national objective.

As reported in a national newspaper recently the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), the focal agency responsible for providing solutions to fix issues along the wheat value chain in the country, has been embroiled in a humongous scandal running to billions of naira on the scheme. The comprehensive report spoke of how the NIRSAL which was supposed to engage about 20,000 farmers in Kano and Jigawa states through incentives in wheat farming turned the whole exercise into a scam of sweetheart deals, round-tripping, money laundering, and the purchase of properties abroad through corrupt enrichment involving its staff.
The conduits for these shenanigans are shell companies set up with little or no track record of handling the tasks for which they are engaged to do.

Under false pretenses, NIRSAL officials deceived the targeted farmers in Kano and Jigawa into submitting their farmlands which collectively ran into thousands of hectares for the wheat scheme. The farmers were told that they will share in the proceeds of the scheme once it yields dividends. But after having collected the details of the farmlands belonging to the farmers, NIRSAL never reverted to the farmers. The farmers suffered the double jeopardy of not being allowed to use their farms as well as not getting anything from the agency.

In the words of one of the farmers reached: “When they came in 2018, they said they were from the federal government, which gave us confidence in the proposed wheat project. But that was the last time we saw or heard from them because they never came back. The promises they made such as the digging of wells and provision of tractors were unfulfilled. Even those whose farms were hired were not settled”. Another farmer said, “after making my farm available for the project, they promised me fertilizer and a well as a source of water and other input for the wheat plantation. But I never saw these thereafter. They never came back or communicated to us through anybody from this community. Indeed we were scammed’’.

At the centre of this entire bazaar is NIRSAL’s managing director Aliyu Abdulhameed. NIRSAL is owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) along with the Bankers Committee both of which fund the agency. But the tragedy in all this is that the CBN has not applied the due diligence expected of it in reining in the untoward activities of NIRSAL under the current MD. The CBN has kept a tight lid on the damning audit report on the activities of the agency which was the first time such investigation had taken place. There are reports that the MD whose tenure expired sometime in December 2020 has continued on in-office performing functions contrary to the provisions of corporate law.

Seeking to evade the law for all these infractions, the NIRSAL MD latches on to the directive by the office of the attorney-general of the federation asking all other anti-corruption agencies to bar the police to hands-off investigations into the activities of the agency. He waves an extract purportedly from the police which he claims clears him of any criminal allegations as an alibi for his non-cooperation in any investigation into the way he runs NIRSAL.

The MD has tried to intimidate media houses from reporting of investigating the activities of his agency by threatening to unleash the police. In the wake of the investigative report that was carried out on NIRSAL, the MD has been frantically trying to obtain a court order to validate the purported police report thereby barring any further attempt to investigate his activities as chief executive of NIRSAL.

For what it is worth, the Buhari administration needs to crank up its gear and do the needful on NIRSAL now that a newspaper has bravely beamed the light on the shenanigans going on there. For one we are faced with an unedifying situation where an agency of government tasked with delivering one of the cardinal objectives of the same government is instead engaging in acts that tend to sabotage that objective.

Secondly, let us feel for the poor farmers. They have been asked to contribute their farming lands to a scheme that they were told will yield dividends to them. But to date, nothing has been forthcoming rendering them bankrupt and unable to use the land for other purposes to mitigate their conditions.

The onus lies on the attorney-general’s office, CBN, and the federal ministry of agriculture to wade into the matter and ensure that the government’s objective is attained and Justice is done to all parties in this unfortunate saga.
Now that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has at last waded into the matter following the report, the commission must ensure a thorough investigation is undertaken to unravel the culprits in this unfortunate saga to ensure that justice is done especially to the poor farmers of Kano and Jigawa who are mostly the victims of this monumental national scam.