Hitting the ground running: Priorities for Tinubu presidency

Cont. from page 32 that we have a common problem and be ready to work together to solve our numerous problems

The process of solving a problem begins with the acceptance of the existence of the problem. Nigeria does have a number of problems; the social media is littered already with them; everyone is busy listing and counting the problems and even cursing with regard to the burden of these problems. We run the streets with anger at a myriad of problematic issues; we rarely remember that the problem would remain eternally with us unless we begin to proffer solutions to them.

So, where do we begin from? Our problems are many, multifaceted but it is also true that there is no problem without solution. An anonymous writer rightly said “when you find no solution to a problem, it’s probably not a problem to be solved, rather a truth to be accepted.”

I will begin with a take on agriculture and Nigeria’s failure over the years to come out better and great as a consequence of the total neglect of that very sensitive sector of the economy. We must all begin from the point of the realisation that every developed nation did not become developed until they first attained agricultural development, that is, as a functionality mature sector. Agricultural development comes first with food sufficiency which is the primary need of individuals and nations but it doesn’t end there; with food sufficiency comes excess that become raw materials for industries. When a nation maximally develops its agricultural sector, processing industries naturally spring up to process farm produce into finished product; jobs are created; crimes are minimal and people generally complain less.

Going into independence, the major contributors to Nigeria GDP and individual incomes; the major employer of labour; the major source of raw materials to several industries was agriculture. All the regions were self-sufficient with incomes generated from agricultural production and practices. The West, for instance, was the great cocoa producing region; the produce turned out in tons and the mighty Cocoa House in Ibadan completes the story. Hundreds of thousands of Westerners were doing really well. Today, we ask, what happens to Nigeria’s cocoa production? Where are the acres of cocoa plantations all over the Southwest? What becomes of the value chain of opportunities along the cocoa business? The jobs created and the prospect of the cocoa processing industry in Nigeria. Sadly, they are gone, down the drain.

The famous groundnut pyramid of yore in the North has become only a theoretical subject in Nigeria. Once, we pride ourselves as the largest producer of palm oil in the world but who are we now with regard to these produce? The Southern Nigeria that used to be the beacon of palm oil production does not remember how to plant and process palm oil any longer. The attention of everyone including the government has been off the sector; agricultural extension officers that were a common sight in all our villages do not exist any longer. We have lost so much abandoning the sector. Today we grapple with the burden of unemployment when a flourishing agricultural sector alone can employ over 40 percent of our population along all its value chain.

Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people and blessed with good arable soil that supports almost all tropical crops has suddenly become a zero producing but 100% food and drinks importing nation. We ignore our capacity to be self-sufficient in food production and still cater for almost all nations in our subregion and have become products dumping ground for other nations.

The list is endless. We import rubber tyres to the tune of $309 million annually while our rubber producing capacity lay wasted; Nigeria, once a palm oil giant, now has a palm oil import bill to the tune of $199 million yearly. We import raw sugar to the tune of $406 million yearly; we even import wheat that we can plant in the North to the tune of

$1.09 billion yearly; needless to talk about fish, pork, beef and poultry importation. Between 1990 and 2011, record shows that we spent about N1.0 billion per day on imported food and drinks.

So, what is the way forward? What are the decisions that must be made? I think we must unanimously agree that we must at all cost attain sufficiency in basic food production, increase local processing of export crops, increase agricultural raw materials for industries, generate gainful employment through agriculture and grow to rationally utilise all our agricultural resources among others.

And how do we achieve these?

We must know and agree that we can produce almost all the food we eat because we possess the capacity. We must all become serious, beginning from the government at all levels; we must identify all the food items we import; we must give a time frame for total stoppage of their importation; we must encourage and mobilise farmers to the farm.

We must make effective usage of graduates of departments and institutes of agriculture. The NYSC scheme should be restructured to annex the knowledge of these fresh manpower. Massive NYSC farm settlements should be established across the country and all corps members with bias in agriculture should be sent to the farms to produce food for the nation. These corps members should be engaged on mutually benefiting agreements that naturally retain them in the scheme.

Finally, every graduate willing to go to the farm must be fully supported by the government; I suggest a partnership that guarantees land availability, resources, market, storage, conversion and processing facilities. It must be a unanimous decision that the incoming administration must return Nigeria to the path of gross agricultural production for local consumption and industrialisation.

How do we do these? There must be direct government investment in the sector across levels of administrations but majorly at the federal level. If we want to get it right, a state of emergency ought to be declared in that very critical sector – agriculture. The multifaceted mandatory and mutually beneficial engagement would literally feed the nation, produce raw materials for many cottage industries, create jobs across many value chains, and reduce insecurity.

Another critical sector that must be attended to as a matter of emergency by the incoming administration is the nation’s education system. Our problem is not just about strikes; the sector needs total rehabilitation, from the curriculum, to the quality of teaching faculties, to financing, remuneration of teachers, lecturers and administrators. Our national education sector requires setting and religiously adhering to standards that comply with global education standards and turn out output that compete considerably on the global front. It is about time that we redesign the nation’s education system to turn out graduates who are on one hand employable, and on the other hand, able to stand on their own as entrepreneurs and inventors. We must critically look at the infrastructure that supports our schools, and the teaching structures; we must look at systemic corruption and malpractices that have taken over the national education system. We cannot have an effective and functional education system, where marks can be bought by whatever means. The incoming administration is already talking of a 25 percent budgetary allocation to education; we hope to see that becoming a reality, as it will be the much-needed intervention that the country needs and a response to the years-long hitherto cry from the sector. Addressing the fundamental challenges leading to recurrent strike actions and closing down of our institutions must be a priority, and of course, making true promises to establish a student loan administration system would be a catalyst to improved education efficiency in the country.

GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!

Defamatory: BSN Sports humiliates NFF’s Ruth David in Court

The Acting Director of Competition, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Ruth David, today (Monday) lost its defamatory case against BSN Sports filed at the FCT High Court, Gwagwalada over a publication titled “U20 FIFA World Cup - Allowance Scandal Hits Falconets Camp,”

In 2018, two months after the publication, Ruth David sued BSN Sports in the suit number CV/1975/2019 for defamation adding that the publication is aimed at disparaging her personality. She however, prayed that the court asked the defendant to pay the sum of Twenty million naira (N20m).

BSN Sports on 4th August, 2018 few weeks after the Nigeria U20 women’s team, the Falconets lost out at the world Cup wrote the story that the federation failed to pay the players and officials match bonuses and allowance for the

African qualifiers and 10-day camping in Austria.

Ruth David in her written address before the court showing the payment of the players and officials of the team for allowance received for one win and one draw at the World Cup. The payment of the twomatch allowance according to the exhibit was paid on 4th October, 2018 while the story was published two months (August 2018) before the purported payment. More so, the publication dwelled on the non-payment of the six matches the team played during the African Qualifiers where they won five games and drew one.

Defendant lawyer, Barrister Dr. Celsus Ukpong (esq) stated unequivocally that the publication was not aimed at Ruth David but the NFF who didn’t see the publication as defamatory and reason they refused to be joined in the case.

Not being convinced by the plaintiff claims as she failed to provide enough evidence and witness to back her claims, the judge on Monday 6th March, 2023 said the evidences provided by the defendant were overwhelming that the publication was not libellous nor defamatory.

Justice A.I Akobi, therefore threw out the case and ruled in favour of Mr. Niyi Busari, Publisher BSN Sports.