Dear Tinubu: Only 100,000 People Can Start A Food Revolution -By Dele Sobowale

“An activist is not a man who says the river is dirty; an activist is a man

who steps forward to clean the river.” — Chief Gamaliel Onosode.

Very few people now recall that the famed Onosode ran for the Presidency in 2007. Asked why an activist and already accomplished man like him wanted to go into the dirty waters of politics, the quote above was his reply. He did not win the election but he left food for thought or thought for food in that statement which I just re-discovered in my archive, buried since 2007.

The statement gave me an idea which had been developing in my mind for ten years which I once observed working well in India in the 1980s. When the Indian Prime Minister, Nehru, prohibited food importation, he also declared that “India should starve, if India cannot feed herself.” It was a bold measure which made India the largest producer and second largest exporter of food globally. A nation which could not feed 400 million people now takes care of the food needs of 1.4 billion and still exports to the rest of the world.

How was it done?

Before answering the question, let me draw attention to three initiatives by the Federal and state governments of Nigeria, which are necessary but insufficient, to create the impact we need in order to achieve sustainable food security.

President Tinubu was in Niger State to launch a new state agricultural programme designed to promote large scale farming. Pictures of president and governor sitting on new tractors were published; the usual addresses and promises of great output were made. Obviously, neither Tinubu nor Bago was aware that they were repeating the same things which had been tried before with limited success. The Operation Feed the Nation, OFN, programme of General Olusegun Obasanjo regime in the 1970s, the Green Revolution Programme, GRP, introduced by President Shehu Shagari in the early 1980s and the NALDA programme embarked upon by President Ibrahim Babangida, in 1992, all started with the laudable objective of helping Nigeria attain food security and enough to export. They were also kicked off with the Head of State riding a tractor and a governor beaming with smiles. Till today, food security eludes us.

Why?

“Give a man fish and he is fed for one day; teach him how to fish, and he feeds himself all his life.” That was the wisdom behind the transformation of India and China into agricultural super-powers. They have overtaken the US as leading exporters of food. Here is why.

A few days after the Minna show, Governor Zulum of Borno State was reported in Daily Trust of March 18, 2024, to have shared food items to 52,500 families in southern Borno and to have also distributed N100 million to youth and women farmers – each receiving N50,000 grant to cultivate their farmlands. Given a population exceeding one million in the area, it was not clear how the beneficiaries were selected. Irrespective of how the beneficiaries were determined, the Governor is still pursuing the principle of giving people food (rice and millet) that would feed them for, at best, a few days. Then they will be back to beg for rice and millet. In reality, the half bag of millet and rice given to them will not be eaten; more than half will be sold to buy ingredients without which raw rice and millet are useless.

“The Federal Government has fixed a national agriculture and food security summit for November this year in Calabar, Cross River State, according to the Minister for Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari. We wonder why a summit on food security has to wait until November 2024, given the emergency situation that high food costs and hunger have imposed on the people of this country.” – Vanguard Newspaper Editorial, March 18, 2024.

This paper went on to point out, quite correctly, that by November, this year’s planting season will be over. What the editorial missed is just as important. The final communiqué and recommendations to government of the November summit will most probably not be ready until about March 2025; the FG will not implement the recommendations without further study and amendments – which will take several months. By then, the planting season for 2025 would have been over. Two whole years will be lost on account of that approach to solving our emergency food crisis. That is not even all.

Summits have never succeeded in solving the problems they start out to address. In my 14 years as staff of Vanguard Newspaper, and as the Economist-In-Residence, I attended more summits than I can possibly count. My archives are full of all the junk collected from those jamborees. The most famous of them remains the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG; founded by late Chief Ernest Shonekan; the Head of the Interim National Government, HING. Working under President Babangida, Shonekan inaugurated the NESG in 1992. NESG started off, as a private sector initiative, with enthusiasm to achieve the exalted aim of making Nigeria a top 20 economy by 2020. Very quickly, it degenerated into a worthless talk-shop with no impact on Nigerian economic policy. I attended eight straight summits; and then stopped. Nobody can point to any significant contribution NESG has made since its inception.

States’ economic summits were just as unproductive. Some smart alecs in states collude with the governors to siphon money into private pockets by organising economic summits. With nothing more than bellyful of pounded yam to show for attendance, I stopped after about a dozen. But, I always keep my eyes on the events to see if anything good would come out of each summit. It never does.

It has been necessary to go to great lengths to advise the FG about the risks being taken in arranging a summit for November. Contrary to what government officials might think of the summit, it is an idea which has been tried several times and ended up being a waste of time, hope and money. They seldom work.

A modest proposal

“Ideas are capital; the rest is money.” The Ministry of Agriculture has resorted to a conventional way of solving what is, in effect, an unusual situation. Undoubtedly, they have lined up professors and motivational speakers, traditional dancers etc to ensure the participants have a nice time. The summit will cost millions of naira; but, it might not even begin to solve the problem. It will probably end up as just another summit whose only beneficiaries are those awarded contracts and those certain to collect kick-backs and kick-fronts.

Archimedes, the father of hydraulic systems, was reputed to have boasted: “Give me a lever, a pivot and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” As in physics, so it is in economic development. Sometimes, a brilliant and simple idea, pressed to the limit, can transform one aspect of a society in a profound way. I found out one of the ways by which India became a food exporter by accident. Our Head Brewer at North Brewery Limited, Kano, was late Mr Patel, an Indian. We became very close when Patel learnt that I studied in America. He was determined to migrate there after working in Nigeria. I was also curious about India. So, in 1983, I took my annual leave and with Patel’s help, went to India to find out how the country could feed so many people. I soon discovered how his village of 10,000 people fed millions. Nigeria can duplicate that feat and it will cost less than two (2) per cent the cost of the planned November Summit. Give me 100,000 people, and I will feed millions.