*Says President rice revolution programme highly commendable
*Speaks in details on how to sustain programme beyond 2023 elections
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade, has praised President Muhammadu Buhari’s efforts at addressing insecurity in Nigeria, saying the country would have collapsed if not for his drive.
The governor said this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme, on Wednesday monitored in Lagos by The DEFENDER, explaining that the President’s military background helped in making that possible.
According to Ayade, there was an international conspiracy against the country, particularly the Northern regions.
“Perhaps, if it was not Buhari’s administration with his military background, the country would have collapsed at this stage,” he added.
“People don’t know that because, if you have been able to avoid risk, nobody can see it because it was avoided. I think the situation could have been worse.”
He noted that apart from addressing insecurity, the present government is also repositioning the economy, adding that there have been moves to tap into other sources of revenue.
“Today, the APC government is coming up with a robust programme. We have 42 billion tonnes of bitumen deposit in Nigeria, making us the third after Canada and Venezuela. This government has a robust plan to put in place a proper bitumen processing plant which has never existed,” the governor added.
From Left: President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor of Cross River State Ben Ayade.
Rice revolution
Asked to comment, as much as it was gladdening to see the volume of achievements in the area of rice production as flagged off by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Tuesday, on how he thinks the successes are going to be made sustainable and how soon the effect of the achievements off the rice pyramids will be felt on price of rice per bag in the Nigerian market, Governor Ben Ayade said:
“Sustainability is critical, indeed, in quantum of over one million bags of rice in one location is actually very commendable and I like to commend Mr. President on this.
“In the case of sustainability, what is required is to support agriculture through a semi-industrial process towards achieving hardware industrialization. Smallholder farmers will only get sustained if this Anchor Borrowers Programme is sustained.
“But where there is a change of government in the course of time after 2023 elections and these people have not reached a stable production level, this may not be sustainable. And that is why my strong recommendation is that, we should institutionalize the principles of agro-industrialisation.
“Which means, take a typical case of Twailand, the infrastructural responsibility towards agricultural farmland is the responsibility of government provides irrigation services, it provides all forms training for farmers, provides fertilizer support and uptake. A farmer has a responsibility of nurturing his farm only.
“But in Nigeria, he gets money, from that small money he gets or that small money he gets from Central Bank, that is the same money he uses in tilling, the land clearing, employing, planting, in harvesting, in milling and then destining. That is too much for a small farmer.
“Then, to make it sustainable, government must have a robust programme to uptake some of the responsibilities that, otherwise, are being helped by rice farmers.
“These big rice pyramids come from organized effort by, example, the Kebbi State governor, Jigawa State governor and all the deliberate efforts of the food security programme of Mr. President. How sustainable is it? Unless we institutionalize it, it can be successful in this regime and start failing, if we don’t have a proper government that is coming in 2023.
“For the price of rice in the market, it is a reflection of how we sustain this programme. Today the price dangles between N22,000 to N35,000 depending on the variety and quality whether it is short grain or long grain. That is where it is. But I think that, for us to sustain this production in spite of the fact that there is a speculation report that about 2 million metric tons of rice is still illegally imported into this country, if those borders are closed and we make a law that no foreign rice in Nigerian market. And, I think, definitely it becomes sustainable when everybody becomes dependent on local rice.”
The Cross River governor is a recipient of Buhari’s presidential honour for his for what he has done in the production of rice value chain and he mentioned some states of Kebbi and Jigawa, who are on the line. Moving forward he was asked as per where they stand, the private sector that should also be driving the process if, to a large extent, sustainability question is going to be addressed.
Responding, Governor Ben Ayade said: “You are definitely right. And that is why it has to be advocated, instead of having an Anchor Borrowers Programme, perhaps we should now advance to an Anchor Farmers Programme where there is a major private sector farmer, perhaps two or three in each of the states where we predominance of rice cultivation.
“And where you have an Anchor Farmers Programme, for example in Ogoja, Cross Rivers State and it gets all the massive inputs; long term loans and support him with all the irrigation and agro-industrial infrastructure, then, it becomes sustainable. It becomes a private sector who will now do a smallholder schemes that are aggregative to him at the aggregative centre and, as a matter of fact, the processing centre.
“I agree that government cannot continue to drive and lead the rice revolution. It gets to a point when the private sector should take over and it is gradually happening.
“Dangote, for example, is coming into the rice game. Most of the rice mills are privately owned. Most of these farms are privately owned. We at governors’ level will only come in to be able to create a direction, a focus and I have mentioned those two states because the two states have the official position of the government under the Presidential Task Force on Rice to be able to drive the rice production process. Not necessarily because they are governors of those states but because they chair and drive this rice revolution programme,” he said.
On his award by the President, he said “it is the application of technology to bring value.”
The governor, who thanked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for his time with the main opposition party, however, called on them to advise the government when necessary.
Nigerians, he said, should look beyond party lines and put the nation first in whatever they do.
“I will not want to speak on party lines because party lines is what has kept this country backward. We should think like a country; we should think like a nation,” the former PDP member noted.
“There is nothing wrong with a PDP government; the PDP people making inputs to bring value.”
