On Nigerian farmers E

On Nigerian farmers E-Wallet idea

Nasiru Suwaid

Generally, human beings by their intricate nature are inquisitive souls, who always seek for ways to explore new things in order to enhance the conditional setting of their living, which is concretely crystallized when a single idea is formed, that seeks to tackle a particular situational challenge or an evident societal deficiency, such an idea later germinates and blossoms into a realized dream. Fundamentally and from the long historical journeys of human growth and development, that has been the basis for the progress attained by the pioneer generation of the past millennia, which has excelled in great discoveries, unique inventions and monumental attainments. Our great forbearers have strived to stage revolutions in violent and peaceful formats, with the industrial and agricultural types happening without the usual disruptive dislocations, while the political revolutions came with the vicious vile of the shining armors and destructive effect of a gun powder. Yet, all of them are products of a determined effort to concretize and achieve an idea.

For anybody that is ever to have had the opportunity of being in my village, would have been left with an indelible impression that indeed Nigeria is in big trouble, not because of the fact that my hamlet is unique in the socio-economic setting it exist upon, rather, because of the reality that my place of origination, represents an identical caricature of nearly all the villages in Nigeria. An area vastly populated with the old, the not so smart and those that are bereft choice in matters of habitation, for the smarter ones, the many that had the wherewithal of movement and most especially the younger ones, have already left for the big cities in search of greener pastures or more appropriately to further exacerbate the rural-urban migration drift, and as a confirmation of the globally acclaimed congestion scenarios evident in our cities. Thus, the only ones left to carry the burden of agricultural production, does so without any choice in the vocation fate and destiny had placed on their plate.

Unfortunately, it is upon such a communal setting that the Nigerian Economic Team mooted an idea or more appropriately conceptualized a new agricultural policy called the Nigerian Incentive based Risk Sharing for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), which is primarily a new governmental initiative that seeks to circumvent the perennial bureaucratic bottlenecks of the Nigerian civil service, when it comes to the allocation of necessary subsidy to the required farm inputs in the agricultural area of the economy, by shifting the organization and disbursement of governmental agricultural support to the more accountable private sector . The new policy was unveiled nearly two weeks ago as an Electronic Wallet initiative, which would subsidize for up to 50% of prices of necessary farm inputs of fertilizer and seeds, with the subsidy cost shared between the three tiers of government. For while the federal government incurs half the amount of the agricultural subsidy support, the participating states and local government share the remainder cost of the 50% subsidy.

A descriptive pictorial of the new concept is based on the grand assumption of over 75% of Nigerians having a mobile set, with the device being the exclusive working and connecting tool between a farmer and the agricultural support service (MDA’s), as already the federal ministry of agricultural had already generated a data for nearly 3.5 million farmers, with the initial subvention of over 27 billion naira set aside for the pilot venture. When a farmer wishes to participate in the new initiative, he or she is required to act upon an alert sent to the each and every prospective farmer, with the alert usually containing information on the availability of fertilizers and seeds and their likely cost in the Village Agricultural Store, usual a small branch of a private enterprise participating in the new agricultural initiative, pending which the farmer goes to the agriculture store with the correspondence notification and inquires on the prices of needed farm inputs, before paying for only half the price on a voucher that the private agricultural enterprise later presents for reimbursement to the appropriate governmental agency, evidently, a novel concept that effectively shields the corrupt civil servant from the process of agricultural subsidy operation, because no monetary allocation and contractual undertaking passes through the hands of those parasitic government officials.

Historically, periods before the beginning of the rainy season have always been a time of monumental vanishing acts, as hundreds of lorry convoys make a disappearing act that could easily put the best magician to shame, because, while those bowler hat wearing entertainment deviants only play with small objects, the apparatchiks in the federal and state ministries of agricultural with their co-conspirator contractors, have the unique Nigerian gift of making massive tones of fertilizers to vanish from our highways in broad day light, without the usual mystery of organized stage supporting service. Thus, when a new concept that seeks to exclude such a counter-productive bunch of individuals was mooted, a lot of Nigerians hailed the idea as a great relief to the much abused and neglected agricultural industry, because the initiative would allow the farmers to get their due in governmental support, without the disruptive influence of armchair profiteers.

While the initiative could be great in its conceptualization, it is on the area of its practical application that problems are likely to arise, especially when the famous Nigerian factor is inserted into the cataclysmic mix. Because of the fact that the policy is premised upon so many assumptions; a farmer owning and operating a handset and being able to write or access texting service, the ability of agricultural inputs company to be present in proximate localities, the subsidy payment voucher being a sacred instrument that is not easily susceptible to manipulations for corrupt purposes. The simple truth is that while the initiative could be of noble intention, as it is said to be applicable in other countries similar to Nigeria and far outweighing us in progress on agricultural production, the concept is highly prone to abuse as it is still within the purview of influence of the much vilified civil servants, more so as the private sector in Nigeria always driven by unethical profit motive, have a documented history of collusion for corruption purposes with government agencies. While the ordinary Nigerian citizen talk less of the farmer does not have a great history with automated financial instruments, as all such modern initiatives gets abused through the infamous acts of fraudulence.