The Director-General, Nigerian Agribusiness Group, Dr Manzo Maigari, who was the North-West stakeholders’ coordinator, Special Duties, All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, shares with ISRAEL BULUS how Nigeria can reap maximise benefits from its agricultural potential and why Tinubu defeated northern candidates in the region in the February 25 presidential election
The candidate of your party in the February 25 presidential election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, defeated prominent northerners like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, in the North, what do you think gave him that victory?
A lot of people don’t know who Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is and the kind of political network he has across the country. If they know, his victory wouldn’t be a surprise to them. Tinubu is one man who has made people and does not hesitate to recruit smarter people to work with him. A number of the people in the political landscape today owe it to Tinubu, so it is no surprise to us that he defeated two strong northern politicians in their region.
Some members of the opposition parties insinuated that some northern governors supported him because of what they could get from his presidency, especially since a number of them are rounding off their second term, what do you make of that claim?
What’s the surprise if northern governors supported Tinubu? Politics is a game of interest and you play it to further your interest. That’s where people get it wrong; they tend to look at politics like religion where you get your reward in heaven. Politics is purely a game of interest and you get your reward here on earth. I am a northerner, I supported Tinubu 1,000 per cent and it was because I saw that my interest would be protected in his presidency. Beyond individuals’ interest, I see Tinubu’s emergence as a turning point for this country, economically. He will recruit the best brains to work with him. He did it in Lagos and the economy of that state became one of the largest in Africa, so a man who demonstrated such a capacity cannot be ignored. He is the answer to the prayers of the poor people. Also, his emergence, being a southerner, will further stabilise the country because rotational presidency has helped to stabilise Nigeria. On the issue of banditry and terrorism, new ideas will come up and we might get some serious relief. The Lagos mega city plan has helped to integrate the economy of Oyo and Ogun states, and I hope we will have the right Minister of the Federal Capital Territory that will also develop the Abuja Mega City plan to integrate the economy of Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa and Kogi states.
Some Nigerians argue that due to his age and health, he may not be able to do much, what is your take on this?
Do they have his doctor’s report to prove that he is incapable? I will say that is blackmail and it’s their opinion, not the fact.
As a professional in the agricultural sector, especially having served as the commissioner for agriculture in Kaduna State during Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s first term, what do you suggest the President-elect should do differently to improve that sector?
One master key to developing agriculture is to set up commodity exchange centres. It should be regional and governors should be involved. These regions should have specific commodities they will focus on, with private sector investment, and government should not hold more than 25 per cent equity. In my view, every state should have its commodity exchange. If you have a commodity exchange in Kaduna, for example, with ginger, vegetables, maize and soya as your priority crops, and then livestock, the money they will make from there will be by far more than what they get from federal allocation and other internally generated revenue sources. That is because for every commodity marketed within your jurisdiction or state, tax must be paid.
In Southern Kaduna, ginger has remained a foremost plant, do you think it is maximally being tapped?
The unfortunate thing is that the people who have this exclusive endowment often live in oblivion. It is totally unacceptable that somebody from Southern Kaduna should be poor, because ginger has the most viable value chain in the North, but the people don’t understand it. So, we produce ginger but it is the Indians and Chinese that are making the money. People can be quick to point at lack of government support but I disagree with that. Farming is a private business.
Has the government shown enough interest in it?
To a large extent, oil has overshadowed everything. Which value chain received serious government attention before this administration? None. It is left for the people of the region to know that is their own oil and develop it. When they focus on it and make progress it will become visible to Kaduna State and the Federal Government and then they will step in. Before oil, Nigeria was an agricultural giant but the moment we discovered oil, everything went down. Are we talking about cocoa, rubber, palm oil; what else receives the government’s attention? Nothing, and it is because there is free oil money and when people get free money, they become lazy.
Middlemen seem to be making a lot of money at the expense of the poor farmers, how can this be reversed?
That can only be possible if they organise themselves. That’s why even when I left government, my company partnered with MasterCard Foundation and brought an intervention that supported about 60,000 farmers to grow ginger up to one hectare each. One hectare is the minimum entry point for ginger, which is enough to sustain a family. But there are challenges, and one of them is that they don’t want to organise themselves; they are too independent minded. They don’t want to be told what to do. You can’t have development where people have that kind of mentality. Another major challenge that I have seen is that our people don’t see farming as a business, so there is very little interest. As impactful as the intervention we brought was, we didn’t achieve one of the purposes of that intervention, which is the development of a very robust cooperative society for the ginger value chain. So, we have to go back and try again. In places where people make progress, they are organised and they form cooperatives, such that during the farming season they can access farming inputs on credit and after harvest, they know what they are expected to pay back. However, there are times when people collect inputs and make a lot of money but refuse to pay back. Some don’t even have respect for the leadership of their cooperatives, and years to come they are back to square one.
Why are there no industries that could take up the raw ginger from farmers and process them into either semi-finished or finished products?
Who will build the industries? We have people that have the capacity to build industries within Southern Kaduna but they are not interested. Considering the political landscape of Nigeria where the risk of annihilation is very high, is it somebody from Sokoto, Zaria or Kano that will build an industry and one day, the owners of the land will wake up and say he is not from there. If he has a misunderstanding with someone, they can defame him, incite the community against him and burn down the place. These are major challenges. If there is anybody that should build an Industry to add value to ginger and empower the people, it should start with the Southern Kaduna people. It starts with giving the people hope and you believing in your region, then investors will come.
Banditry and terrorism have prevented people from accessing their farms, and that has led to hunger in many communities, how can this be addressed?
Banditry is a very huge challenge and the government has its reasons for taking the approach it has taken. No country or government will allow terrorists to form a parallel government but the approach matters. So, if you don’t engage adequately, your approach might be seen as human rights abuse and at the end it puts you in trouble.
Subsistence farming is still commonplace, even in places where commercial farming should be the first option, how can that be addressed, if only for the purpose of food sufficiency?
I doubt if we can overcome that. There is poverty everywhere but what we need to do is to educate farmers more and improve their capacity to be more productive. Also, they need to form cooperatives, which makes it easier to do a review, transfer knowledge and innovations that will improve their productivity. If they form cooperatives they can be able to aggregate their produce and bargain with large scale buyers and get better value for their produce. But if every farmer takes five metric tonnes of produce to the market, they can’t get a good bargain. That’s why the middlemen shortchange the farmers. It has been estimated that the farmers make only 30 per cent of the profit while the middlemen make 70 per cent profit but the farmers don’t understand this until they form cooperatives and they are able to aggregate their farm produce such that manufacturing companies and exporters can buy directly from them. If they don’t take that approach, it is the middlemen who are visible to the big buyers that will make more profit.
The APC candidate in the governorship election, Senator Uba Sani, won the election, are you confident he will deliver credible leadership, given the enormous challenges in the state?
What many people don’t realise is that Uba Sani has a pedigree in civil society. He was an activist before and was under the tutelage of the late Gani Fawehinmi and Ransome Kuti before he joined politics. He served as a political adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and has held several positions. He also served as the political adviser to Governor Nasir El-Rufai, and today he is in the Senate. He has a lot to show for being in the Senate for just one term. Through his influence, he got the Nigerian Communications Commission to build and fully equip three computer centres; one in Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan Waya, one in Kaduna State University and another one in Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria and that was even before he became the senator to represent Kaduna Central senatorial district. He upgraded all the Primary Health Centres in his constituency, attracted many projects to his constituency and the state, among other things. I am confident that we will experience rapid development under his administration.
Many people have expressed reservations about the elections, including the one that brought in Sani as the governor-elect, what is your assessment of the exercise?
The election was free and fair, even though no human activity is perfect. Since we started elections, especially in our modern democracy since 1979, candidates don’t accept defeat, except in 2015. They will always agitate. Even in some developed countries, some agitate and go to court. There were complaints about the BVAS, but we didn’t have electronic voting, the polling unit result was only to be transmitted with the BVAS to the INEC result viewing portal. But people should understand that we have weak infrastructure. Politics is a game and there is hardly any player that is foolproof, so nobody should expect a perfect system. In assessing an election, you give an error margin and you then examine whether the error was beyond the margin or not. In any case, for those who are aggrieved, they have a channel to go to court and seek redress. That is the only way we can build our democracy. If I feel very bad about you and I go about blackmailing you because I can influence public opinion, it can become detrimental to you, but when we go to court and I present my facts and those facts can be substantiated then the court will rule.
When you were the commissioner, what were some of the achievements?
Quite a lot of them. We had the Commercial Agricultural Development Programme assisted by the World Bank. We had APPEALS which supported the ginger value chain in the state. The project was an offshoot of the CADP. I was also able to bring Olam International which has created so many jobs and has improved the livelihood of the people. We also had the Tomato Jos factory which indisputably is one of the biggest processing companies in Nigeria today. We brought Vicampro through which we would have been self-sufficient in potato today but a lot of issues came up and they had to leave. These are just a few of the things we did.
