Former Nasarawa State governor, Senator Abdullahi Adamu is chairman Senate committee on Agriculture. In this interview with ANDREW OOTA, he bares his mind on the controversies surrounding herdsmen, farmers clash over grazing lands, as well as the anti-corruption crusade of the government.
What is your take on the farmers and herdsmen conflict?
I have the privilege of being a farmer and that gives me the opportunity to appreciate the issues that make up the conflict between herdsmen and farmers. I have seen it from both sides of the coin. As a farmer who develops crops and when my cattle damage other farmers’ crops. On my farms today, you will find guinea corn, maize, millet, cassava, yam, tea plantation and many others, and to a very large extent, I have vegetables.
Therefore if a farmer complains about what happened to him, I appreciate because I have suffered the same fate. If a herdsman complains about harassment by a farmer, I have also had that experience because my cattle have gone out and damaged other farmers’ crops and we paid damages. In the same way, I have Fulanis or, some class of herdsmen, enter my farm where I suffered damages and they have equally paid compensation for the damages on my farm.
The whole problem is that the herdsman does not have clearly classified routes for him to walk his cattle in the cause of grazing and because of the absence of identified gazetted routes; he is at the mercy of the farmland owner through which he has to move his cattle. Sometimes it is not deliberate that he walks his cattle across farmlands, animals can stray and get out of control and cause some damages.
The traditional authorities that hitherto, settled such issues amicably by assessing the extent of damages and awarded cost to the damages, are no longer there as a result of decay in the culture and tradition, lack of discipline on the part of both the herdsmen and the farmers, resulting to conflicts, such that it is difficult to apportion blame. But one issue that has come up very clearly is the proliferation of arms and I sympathise with those at the receiving end. The proliferation of arms cannot and must not be blamed on the herdsmen because communal unrests in localities over farmlands between farmers themselves results into high level of display of light arms and ammunitions.
There are no herdsmen involved in that, so who brings the arms? During political elections, such as recently witnessed in Rivers and Bayelsa states , we saw massive, rampant display of light firearms and even in some cases, heavy arms, such as AK47 riffles. Herdsmen were not involved , so we have to be very careful when we make certain comments.
What is the senate doing?
We want to first get the facts and see what is best, either to make legislations that will help in curtailing this nuisance and bring it to a stop or reduce the conflict between herdsmen and farmers to the barest minimum. When you come to me and say herdsmen killed 900 people, it is strange. I understand there are emotions, but some of these emotions are deliberately planted to create confusion rather than solution.
How do you explain that somebody who is talking about herdsmen anywhere in Nigeria over the last two to three months, would go to London to demonstrate with Biafran flags? How do you explain that? Is there no ulterior motive to it? Is there no politics in it? I am a politician, but I condemn where people take advantage of situations like these. The President has come up to say we have had enough of loss of lives and have directed security operatives to go after the perpetrators and apprehend them, so that they will face the full weight of the law. I, for instance ,do not even believe that every herdsman in Nigeria is a Fulaniman. There are herdsmen in Yorubaland, in the South East, people speak Fulfude and I have seen Fulani speaking Igbo language, which means they have herdsmen in their midst.
Somebody told us at a public hearing that herdsmen have lived in their neighbourhood for over forty years. If this is the case, why this sudden increase of hate campaign? Why this sudden attitude of saying leave our land? Why the sudden abandonment of the provisions of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria which gives every Nigerian a right of free movement, settlement to pursue his legitimate business anywhere in the country? Herdsman-ship is a business, so why would anyone want to contravene the constitution and say you can’t stay here and pursue your business? Why would people want to take laws into their hands to begin to say do not come here?
When people say government cannot take our land for ranching, it is strange, it is unnecessary because the government of Nigeria can take any part, pay compensation to the so called owner of the land. The Land Use Act is part and parcel of the Nigerian constitution. I was a minister of works at some time in my life and I know that every land owned by government is held in trust by the federal ministry of works. While I was there, if we wanted land say for housing, we will carve out that portion, survey it, pay compensation and that is still the law. People should be careful because you cannot come up and start threatening government, you cannot say government cannot take land that belongs to it, that is an affront and anybody that talks that way does not appear or, is desirous for peace. I have told those threatening government that if they think they have means of violence; government has monopoly and greater means of violence. It is for the sake of stability that government does not apply its full powers. The grazing and ranching we are talking about are an essential elements to bring peace. In this situation, the government must find a way to establish places where the cattle can go, you cannot say cattle cannot go anywhere. In civilized countries, the animals have rights, they want to eat and drink like you do, that is a reality .Herdsman-ship is a calling and lucrative business like any other sector. Government must provide infrastructure for the herdsman by establishing routes and ranches , there must be an enabling environment for it to flourish.
Would you say steps taken so far by government towards diversifying the economy are in the right direction?
I believe very strongly that the government has seen, understood and appreciated the depth of the problems of getting agriculture up to the front burner, and it is only by doing so that we can talk of diversification and getting the agriculture sector involved as a source of job creation, revenue generation and our capacity to feed ourselves. I therefore believe that this government is taking the right steps. The budget has just been signed. Before the signing people have had their expectations of what should have been done by now because of campaign promises and during inauguration of this government and these are legitimate expectations. President Muhammadu Buhari also appreciates all of these and he came out and acknowledge the pains of the people and said, he shares in their pain.
Now, what I expect from all of us is to give the government a fair chance to see what government would now do after the signing of the budget. A few of the things that government intends to do is to develop infrastructure necessary for the development of the agricultural sector- such as rural roads, dams , rural electrification , value addition and pricing of products depending on class of the products, these are some of the requirements. Every farmer will know what to plant and what to expect in terms of returns for his efforts during the planting season and government is working on all of these. There would be commodity markets where you take your products to and get the value for it, they can also keep your products form you just like you keep your money in the bank and, anytime you want it, you can go and take whatever quantity that you want. We did not have such before now. This time, the government is going to do it. There would be market accessibility; the youths would be empowered to go into farming, the market women and women farmers would be empowered. There is also a scheme in this budget where agriculture cooperatives would be set up to provide funds for youth and women farmers. In the past, they did not have access to funds and even where they had, the interest rates were very high.
Government has also put in place automated agriculture operations, where farms implements and appliances such as tractors, will be available to make operations easier. In fact, the president himself said it during the economic retreat in no mistaken words. Farmers will have access to fertilizers that would be produced locally based on specification so that when there is a problem, government will know who to hold responsible. For the first time there will be soil map in Nigeria that will show you the type of soil anywhere in The country and what type of fertilizer to apply. All these are provided for in the budget and I believe the federal government is serious. I agree with the federal government that you cannot expect 100 per cent performance; no country has achieved that despite their sophistications and all the noise about due process. We have our issues of manpower, statistics and data banks to ensure discipline in the system, so I agree with the government of President Buhari that we should not expect 100 per cent performance but let the culture of assessment of performance of the budget form part of the game.
Looking at the composition of the present Senate, the policy thrust of the government and the promises of your party, the APC, would you say there is any synergy?
I would not want to personalise relationships, I appreciate that the Senate President is having some brushes with the Code of Conduct Tribunal and I will not want to talk about it because it would be prejudice. But as an institution, the Senate is going on well with the Presidency as far as I know. The budget have been passed, which is a good taste. The forth and backs are normal in parliament in all democracies including America and the United Kingdom. All they do is to lobby and try to remove all the hurdles. Till date, when the UK Prime Minister brings budget to the House, there is forth and back until they agree.
The fact that former President Goodluck Jonathan would come with a budget and go out with it does not mean it should be the same thing under President Buhari. This government promises transparency and that is what it is doing. The budget came a bit late at a time we were closing for the end of the year. We had to stay back until the budget was presented, it was not deliberate on the part of the Presidency because at that time, there was pressure on Nigeria to host the 40th anniversary of ECOWAS and that took some time off the Presidency and it affected the presentation. There was again the issue of a missing budget, which was not our fault. The President then wrote and made some explanations on some amendments and that was done through a formal letter that was read on the floor of the Senate. There was also the issue of padding which was blamed on the technocrats in government by the various ministries , there was also the issue of the Lagos-Calabar rail line, some projects intended were not introduced and vice versa and all of these were worked out and the budget signed into law.
What is left now is implementation, while we do our oversight, it will interest you that the President has told us to do our oversight functions. He has promised that the Executive will not be on our way but that we should be transparent, and so there is hope for good governance and we are moving on fine.
Are you satisfied with monies allocated to the agricultural sector?
My satisfaction would rather be on the fact that the government would chose the right direction which it has chosen and I appreciate what it is doing not the quantum of money in the budget that would be my satisfaction. The first thing I raised about the budget was that in 2003, Nigeria under President Obasanjo signed the Moputo declaration under the African Union charter, that every member shall provide 10 per cent of its annual budget to agriculture. No president has observed that. Late President Umaru Yar’Adua went about 3.7 per cent and that is the highest. The current government is just about 1.2 per cent. However, the Buhari administration is handicap because of the state of the treasury. You cannot place something on nothing, so no matter how ambitious President Muhammadu Buhari is to change the country for the better, the reality on ground would dictate to a large extent, what he can do and what he cannot do.
Nigeria came from selling crude oil for $142 per barrel to about $27 and now, $46. The difference of $100 is what we have since 2011 and that is a problem, because of the level of looting and impunity with which public funds were taken in billions everyday by the last administration. This could have got to trillions if that government had continued. Now there is no money in the treasury, so I will say my satisfaction would depend on the way government treasury stands and how the President decides to go. I try to understand where the President wants to go; the circumstances and I appreciate his efforts.
You were a governor for eight years in a state believed to have abundant solid minerals, the present government also focuses on solid minerals, is the blueprint in the right direction?
I have not seen the blueprint, but I do know that some fundamental changes must have taken place. Hitherto, what is in the constitution forbids anybody from going into mining because the rights rest with government. When I was governor, I tried to establish a department for solid minerals but I was told that the constitution forbids it. Then I started a small establishment on solid minerals, put the infrastructure, but I didn’t have enough time to take it beyond that until I left. But one thing that made it a little bit slow was that I was not to go into mining rather to set up an enabling environment for the private sector to be attracted to go into mining. I did a survey of the state, got consultants from Nigerian Mining Corporation based in Jos, the Plateau State capital, to help us develop a road map. We provided the resources required. But it is abandoned and one interesting thing is that one of the infrastructure I developed, which is the centre for solid minerals where we had a show room, offices and laboratories, was part of the reasons I was charged for misappropriation of government funds three years after I left office.
So, one restriction is the fact that the constitution is not favourable, the federal government even issue licenses for the states. So we were not doing much. However, I am happy that the present administration is tackling the issues squarely because I remember that the mining issue came up during the economic retreat, but like I said, I have not seen the blueprint to be able to know exactly what is there for the solid minerals sector.
How would you rate this government so far?
I will not be on the same page with the public because I know the passion and commitment of the President to meet the expectations of the people and I appreciate that. We are trying to explain to the people on why and how we are where we are. It is easier for people to criticise, but the truth is that you cannot correct what took place in 16 years in one year. But relatively speaking, you can now go to bed with your eyes closed, no bomb blast in markets, mosque or churches. It was not the same in the past, whether you like it or not, the change process has commenced and there is a change of attitude in the country on the issues of corruption. Some people would ask that how many people have gone to prison on the issue of corruption? But the prison is the ultimate, therefore there is a process for you to go there. The trials are fair and they are following due process. The truth is that a good number of those who looted the treasury have returned the loot, government just do not want to make it public so as not to scare others who are on the verge of making returns. So if we can get the money quietly, I think it is fair. I like criticisms, we welcome it, but it must be constructive.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said Nigeria is fantastically corrupt, do you agree with that comment?
I will only agree with him the day the British government under Prime Minister Cameron, transfers all the monies stashed in banks in the United Kingdom to Nigeria. That is when we will know that their hands are clean. In law, we say, you do not go to equity with dirty hands. With all respect to the British Prime Minister, a lot of these stolen monies are in British banks, let them bring them back to us. It is only then they would have washed their hands clean.
Source: Leadership Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment