Professor Ango Abdullahi was the former Vice Chancellor of Nigeria's Ahmadu Bello University- Zaria. He served as Special Adviser on Food Security to former president Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2003.
The professor is a walking encyclopedia of what has become the trial of the agricultural sector in Nigeria.
"I have led a purely academic life. After my retirement, I went to the farm. I am still engaged in agriculture. "
The former chancellor laments the outright relegation of agriculture by past administrations.
"Whether anybody likes it or not, agriculture is still the cornerstone of the Nigerian economy. Without agriculture this country will collapse. Despite the status of oil as the revenue earner for this country, as I talk to you now, agriculture is still the backbone of the country, it is still the source of sustenance for millions of our peasant farmers in our rural areas. Agriculture contributes 40% GDP and 70% employer of labour and also provides food to Nigeria, yet the public allocation of funds to agriculture has always wallowed between two to three percent. This is against common sense and against advice from experts. World experts have always advised developing countries that the agric sector should be allocated not less than 20% of the national budget. "
"It is only Malaysia that has taken this advice seriously and allocated between 20% and 23% every year in the past 20 years. From 1970 to 1990, see what Malaysia has become in terms of agriculture and agro-based industry. This is what Nigeria should do. In 1964 when I was just graduating from college, Malaysia collected its first seedling for palm trees from Nigeria. Today they are exporting palm oil to other countries of the world. Malaysia is about transforming palm oil into gasoline for automobiles. "
"So you see, this is a major challenge and that was part of my quarrel with the former president (Obasanjo). To state the fact, we are worse off than we were in the past. We are supposed to have advanced in agriculture and create jobs for our people. The back up services for the agriculture is not available. It is terrible. All our fertiliser plants are closed. It is indeed unfortunate and we need to do something about it," Abdullahi declares.
"The crisis Nigeria is undergoing now," continues the former ABU vice chancellor, "is that of leadership. We need a leadership that is properly focused on the needs of the country. The leadership we have had in the past eight years was self serving. All the revelations we are hearing today is that we only had budgets on paper, while some people were busy helping themselves with the money. If you take into consideration what we have heard so far, then you will agree with me that the level of destruction in the past have been tremendous. Some people are even saying that what we have heard so far has been simply a tip of the iceberg. But we must have this at the back of our minds that hope is a necessary ingredient and we must keep it alive in order to move forward as a nation."
allafrica.com
