The Chairman of Akwa Ibom State Bulk Purchase Agency, Dr Dan Akpan, speaks about the current food crisis ravaging the country and the government’s plan to mitigate its effects, especially on the poorest of the poor in this interview with PATRICK ODEY. Excerpts:
What motivated Governor Umo Eno to establish the Bulk Purchase Agency?
I will say that the governor formed this agency to touch the lives of many Akwa Ibom people directly, especially the vulnerable ones. He wants to reduce the level of poverty in the state and relate with people who cannot fend for themselves. Governor Eno feels that if he can use the available money to buy commodities from the producers and bring them to the state, definitely the prices of goods will come down. People with very low salaries, or those who don’t even have a salary at all can easily cope by buying from the agency at a reduced rate too. I am sure Pastor Eno had this vision even before becoming a governor. The experiences he got from his business, and his church as a pastor must have empowered him to come up with this arrangement.
Also, you should understand that our farming culture in Nigeria nowadays is slow. People don’t farm as they used to, and there are so many casualties in society; that is why he started thinking outside the box, to see a way to salvage the situation by encouraging the people to go back to the farm, even as he declared every first and third Fridays of the month farming days for civil servants. As a government, we can bring out N2bn to certain companies to supply certain food items at a very cheap rate, and the agency can also subsidise those items for the people to ease the means of livelihood. He did all these things to improve the economy of the state and for the people to be able to feed themselves and family.
Food crisis, like insecurity, is one of Nigeria’s major challenges. To what extent has it affected the people of the state?
The food crisis is a global phenomenon. That is why the Akwa Ibom State government is thinking outside the box, by introducing or developing several parameters to cushion the effects of the food crisis, encouraging back-to-farm initiatives and declaring two days a month for civil servants to work on farms in their compound and main farms
When is the programme going to commence?
We’ve actually started skeletally, but we have not finished building warehouses. In the meantime, we are engaged with other initiatives such as supplying food to the poorest of the poor. The supply is not for everybody, but for the poorest people in society, as contained in the social register which was provided by UNICEF. It is the same social register that we are using, but we had to update it because some of these people have graduated from being the poorest of the poor to average, some have died, etc, so they have to be replaced by new people. That doesn’t mean that the register captured all the poorest people because some people were doubting, thinking that it was a scam until the governor brought the palliative rice and then started looking for where to register.
In social intervention, some governments may decide to give wrappers or any other items of choice, but the governor, Pastor Eno, felt that the best thing to do is to give those who don’t have what to eat food for the meantime.
Is the idea of distributing vouchers to the poor every day not a way of encouraging laziness?
There is no agreement with the poor that the government will be giving them food every day. Even though the governor announced ‘Happy Hour’, it does not mean that every Friday is happy hour. Laziness doesn’t come in. If I go home and give my mother 5kg rice or garri, does it mean that my mother will not work again to feed herself? The idea is to support those farmers. The question of laziness should be ruled out, even before the palliative items, the governor on his own was going about helping people, so when the opportunity came to be a governor, he just expanded his reach.
There is an allegation that only those who supported the Peoples Democratic Party are targeted, leaving out supporters of the opposition parties. Is this true?
This is not true. The All Progressives Congress, the Youth Progressives Party, the African Democratic Congress, the Labour Party members, etc, are all there, all political parties are there in the social register. Our governor does not want to hear that we are giving food to PDP persons alone, he can even sack you for that. This social register we use was not organised by the PDP. It is a universal register and it is mainly to register people who are vulnerable and very poor for intervention. Governor Eno, as long as I know him, cannot accept such a thing.
How many people in that register are benefitting from the programme?
There are many people, I’ll look for the total number updated in the register and give it to you. We have 368 wards and these people come from each ward.
Some critics said the governor should have used the money he is using to buy foodstuffs to empower the farmers. What is your take on this?
There is nothing wrong if the governor decides to feed the people, I mean the underprivileged in society. That doesn’t mean that he is not looking at farming. Our main focus in this state is farming, which is why he established the biggest farms in Nsit Ubium, and he brought people, experts, from Equatorial Guinea to farm there. The farming area is more than 50 hectares of land and from time to time, he has promised rolling out money for the small-scale farmers. A few months ago, he rolled out N400m to young entrepreneurs to boost farming, which shows that farming is going on, palliative distribution is going on, and helping people to eat is going on. If you see the people coming to collect these foods, you will feel pity for them and if you have money on you, you’ll be moved to give them money. If all the governors can take a small part of their money to buy food and give to the poor for free, things will be better in this country. In some foreign countries, food is always subsidised for citizens, whether you are a farmer or not. For Governor Eno to decide to reach out to the vulnerable is not bad, even that money used for stomach infrastructure we are talking about, what do you think that it could have been used for that would be better than food palliatives? The former Brazilian President remains in power forever because he applied the Maslow ideology.
With all these life-touching programmes of the governor, how do you see Akwa Ibom in the next couple of years?
Yes, I can see light at the end of the tunnel, because in management, when you sit down to plan, you’ll see good results and this government sat down to plan, surely we are going to see a good result. One year in office already and a lot of people, especially the poor ones, have been touched in one way or the other, apart from the palliative distribution, he has built houses for civil servants below Level 7 and widows, workers and other poor people. We are always lucky to have good governors in Akwa Ibom. Victor Attah designed this state and brought up boys to men. Godswill Akpabio came in and it was wonderful, Udom Emmanuel came in and performed very well, so why won’t Umo Eno do well too? The past governors always laid the foundation for the next government. God bless them.
With this agency in place, is there hope that the price of foodstuffs will crash shortly?
It is difficult to make that pronouncement because there are so many factors responsible for the high rate of inflation in Nigeria – logistics, insecurities, high cost of petrol, international crisis, etc. The agency is not there to control inflation but rather to mitigate the impact of inflation in the state. One of the biggest problems in Nigeria is not the non-availability of food, but a place to store the perishable goods for the next harvest. Warehousing the food is a problem. Storing some of these seasonable crops is a big challenge in Nigeria. In Canada, for example, they’ll warehouse these items and when the prices of food start rising globally, they fall back on what they have in the warehouse. Canada would even be the one supplying food to America and other places.
This agency will also encourage farmers by giving them money to go and farm and we will buy the produce from them and store it for the next season. I promise that in the next harvest season, we will have sufficient food in Akwa Ibom State and may be sent to other states. Yes, other states would be coming here to buy foodstuffs, because the investment the state government has put in the agricultural system is enormous. His Excellency is making plans to bring more tractors to enable large-scale farming. I’m sure in the next harvest, the price of certain food items will come down.
Another area we are looking at is the building materials. You know in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the first thing a man needs is food, after he is satisfied, he will look for shelter, after shelter he looks for a car. So if we can address the issue of hunger or food, the next step is housing. The Akwa State Bulk Purchase Agency is working with the government’s vision of the ‘ARISE Agenda’. The next item would be to subsidise building materials by using the same vision of His Excellency. Pastor Eno is running a people-centric government. The agency would continue to identify those areas that will ensure food security and sufficiency and improve the socio-economic conditions of the population at the grassroots level.
Don’t you think this system will affect traders who buy their goods from dealers at normal rate and add their profit too?
It won’t affect them. For instance, if we bring cement down to N5,000 and those small business owners or agents will come to buy at a cost of N5500 and sell at N6000 to the public, it means their existence is assured. Our government is the government of the people for the people. Again, since small businesses cannot buy directly from the manufacturer, we buy bulk from the manufacturers and subsidise the middlemen. We strengthen our value chain principle through the logistic structure of the agency. We plan to add 2.5 per cent for the market women and men helping us distribute these items, for their stress and services and to give them a sense of belonging.
As of now, people selling one bag of garri for the whole month are now selling five bags in a day, to show you how the palliative initiatives are benefiting both the poorest of the poor and the small businesses. One thing is that in every new vision, people must criticise, but it’s left for you to do what is right.
How sustainable is this programme?
In every programme, you must devise a means of sustaining it, but it depends on the area you are looking at, is it palliative, or what? Palliative, as I told you, is an intervention to mitigate the high cost of food for the poorest of the poor. The government of Pastor Eno encourages people to go back to the farm. We are also making arrangements to have a buffer warehouse to sustain a consistent food supply to the vulnerable population in the state. His Excellency loves his people.
Is there any measure put in place for any new government that will come in to continue with the programme?
You can’t force any government to continue with your vision. The new government can come and see it differently or see it as a good initiative where the lives of the underprivileged are touched and continue with the programme. Another government may say if I spend this money on these people, I’ll not have pocket money again and leave it and you can’t question the governor.
