The North: So Productive, So Poor? -By Tony Osborg

Each time I travel across Northern Nigerian states, all I see along the roads is wealth, wealth, and more wealth. From Kano to Katsina to Zamfara and beyond. The sight of endless cultivated farmlands on both sides of the road is just amazing.

Despite this level of agricultural productivity, there still seem to be a high incidence of poverty in the North. This is what confuses me. The world can possibly live without crude oil, but not without food. The people in the food production business are supposed to be more comfortable and self-sustaining than the oil business people. Yet in Nigeria, it is the reverse.

According to CBN statistics, Nigeria spends N1 billion daily importing rice alone. That is N365 billion annually. The North is now positioned to take a major share in this business. If one adds the volumes of all the agricultural produces of the North and checks the statistics against the cash flow, one would see that the North ought to have no relationship with poverty. Another statistic shows that Nigeria spends N24 trillion annually on food consumption. If the North dominates the agriculture sector, then they should be way above the murk of poverty.

There is a disconnect between the level of agricultural productivity in the North and also the level of poverty there. This is puzzling. It is either the North is selling its farm produce cheaply to the rest of the country, or the capitalist middle men are shortchanging the farmers or something else is fundamentally wrong and difficult to figure out.

I am sure that if the Federal Government stops breastfeeding the Northern state governments with free oil money, these states would be forced to resolve this disconnection between their income potentials and the material reality of their people. With its vast expanses of land serving a natural comparative advantage in Nigeria, the North needs to optimise its edge and stop portraying itself as a region that cannot survive without the resources of the South. A people and region so productive ought to have no relationship with poverty, and whatever may be wrong can certainly be fixed through a recourse to restructuring and true federalism.

How can a tomato farmer sell his output of a basket of tomato for N5,000 in Kano, and a middle man buys it from him to resell in Lagos for N18,000. Thats an almost 300 percent increase, with almost a certain 200 percent profit margin or more, given the economics of scale of transportation. Why should the middle men be making more money than the farmers? These are issues the government at that level would be forced to look at through a resort to true federalism, and its economics.

The North needs to support the #RestructureNigeria campaign and prove to the rest of the country that it can survive without being breast fed with free oil money from the South.

A people cannot be so productive and yet be so poor. Something is basically wrong. To restructure Nigeria and entrench regional competition is a task that must be done.

Tony Osborg writes for The Federalist Movement of Nigeria.