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2014 National Budget: The Wane in Agricultural Sector Budget Allocation in Nigeria.

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Jonathan presents Budget

Jonathan-presents-Budget

The nation Nigeria with a remarkable landmass and a population comparable to any developed nation around the globe has utterly neglected a viable sector capable of alleviating the exponential increase in poverty. The most fascinating thing is that her workforce are majorly comprised of youth who are ready to be engaged in labour-rewarding activities.

Agriculture has the capacity to create job and remains the only alternative to the menace of unemployment quagmire in the country. The value-chain in agriculture presently accounts for 37.8% of Nigeria’s GDP and could actually shoot-up to more than 76% if properly harnessed by the federal government. The activities that surrounds agricultural sector is enough for a whole nation to be highly dependent on the sector for economic growth and actual development.

Despite the greener pasture this sector promises, it has repeatedly received a lackadaisical attitude from the government. The steady decline in the budgetary allocation to agricultural sector is a testament to this fact which has highly impeded its development from inception. The chart below presents a percentage depreciation of allocation to agricultural sector and the blink future of Nigeria’s economic growth and development from 2011–2014.

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Year                National Budget             Agriculture                        Percentage

2011                N 4.07 trillion               81.2 billion                        1.81%
2012                N 4.69 trillion               78.9 billion                        1.66%
2013                N 4.92 trillion               81.4 billion                        1.77%
2014                N 4.6 trillion                 66.6 billion                        1.47%

Logically, there isn’t a problem with allocating more funds to security and education since the citizens needs to fill protected as well as a reduction in illiteracy level, but realistically, how secured will a man be in his house or on the street without available and affordable food to eat? This goes without saying that the phrase “a hungry man is an angry man” is quite true, which makes him dangerous to the society that the government work so hard to protect. The most secured nations in the world were not built on strong military presence but on adequate provision of basic materials necessary for human existence and survival, this extends to a child in the school who most definitely cannot comfortably learn on an empty stomach.

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The state of security in Nigeria will continually be threatened as long as people are hungry, unemployed, and continue to live below $1 a day. The quality of education is also tied to agriculture. Federal government definitely needs to get her priorities right if Nigeria is ever going to graduate from the menace bedeviling the nation in one piece.

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Dibia Ikechukwu.

    September 11, 2014 at 11:29 am

    Pls,i want 2 kno Agricultural allocation of Nigeria from 2000 till 2014.

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