How can that be when this man became a professor on the basis of one
and half papers--one solo; the other co-authored.
Ango belongs to the generation of so-called Northerners who benefited
because of their suppposed 'northernness'
ib
On 9/28/10, Mobolaji ALUKO <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://thenewsafrica.com/2010/08/16/jonathan-wont-win-in-2011/
> THE NEWS
> Jonathan Won't Win In 2011
>
>
> Posted by TheNEWS <http://thenewsafrica.com/author/umoh/> on August 16, 2010
> // 47
> Comments<http://thenewsafrica.com/2010/08/16/jonathan-wont-win-in-2011/#comments>
>
> *Professor Ango Abdullahi, former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello
> University, Zaria has retired from public office, but has cut for himself
> the reputation of a vibrant and reliable mouthpiece of the North. He has
> also represented the North in various capacities within and outside Nigeria.
> The 72-year-old academic is of the view that the zoning policy of the
> Peoples Democratic Party is sacrosanct and must be respected, particularly
> as it was on the basis of zoning that everyone in the corridors of power at
> the federal level got elected or appointed. For arguing that Jonathan and
> the late Umaru Yar'Adua's ticket is inseparable and so President Jonathan
> can complete that tenure, Ango sees Chief Solomon Lar's G-20, an
> anti-zoning northern group as a bunch of unserious northerners pursing
> personal interest. He also commented on the need to empower INEC through
> appropriate legislation to enable it conduct credible and acceptable
> elections in 2011. Abdullahi spoke extensively on the need for northern
> farmers to return to the farm, corruption and his days in office as the
> Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Food and Security, from
> 1999 to 2003. Though he identified oil as a very important revenue earner
> for Nigeria, he insisted that agriculture should be the backbone of the
> country. Born in Yakawada village under Zaria Emirate in 1938, Ango
> Abdullahi attended Barewa College, Zaria, where he passed out in 1958. He
> also attended the Nigerian College, Zaria; University College, Ibadan;
> Kansas State University, USA, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He holds a
> B.Sc. in Agriculture, 1964; M.Sc. in Agronomy, 1968 and Ph.D. in Agronomy,
> 1976. Pursuing a purely academic career, Abdullahi rose to become a
> Professor and the Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria
> between 1979 and 1986. In 2007, the distinguished Professor of Agriculture
> was honoured by the Federal Government as Commander of the Order of the
> Niger, CON. In the same year, his native Zaria Emirate turbaned him the
> Magajin Rafin Zazzau (Custodian of water and agricultural resources). Since
> his retirement, he has returned to the farm – in a practical commitment to
> his first love, agriculture. He spoke with FEMI ADI, Kaduna Correspondent*
>
> **
>
>
> *The controversy trailing the issue of zoning is not only overheating the
> polity, it is also tearing the country apart. Even the North that has been
> noted for political unity over the years seems to be divided on the issue of
> zoning. How do you think the matter can be resolved? *
>
> We have to understand first and foremost, the genesis of zoning political
> offices or by extension, public service offices in the country we live in.
> Going back to when Nigeria was put together by colonial powers, they were
> well aware of the historical, cultural, ethnic and even religious
> diversities of the country they put together and called it Nigeria. And this
> was the basis on which they premised the series of constitutions, from
> Richardson to date. Based on this diversity, and from experiences in various
> parts of world, it was clear that Nigeria could do better with a federal
> constitution which allows its various components to be as self-determining
> as possible. This was how they managed affairs, either locally or
> regionally. This is what we inherited. It is clear from the beginning that
> this basic issue of diversity made it mandatory for us to have a federal
> constitution in the first place. And this constitution took off with three
> regions––North, West and East. And I think it was in 1963 or thereabout that
> Mid-West came on stream. It then became the fourth region. Each region then
> had its own constitution. There was also a federal constitution. It was the
> apparent imbalance between the North as a region and the rest three in the
> South that continued to stress the political landscape of the country in
> terms of control of federal power. I think this among others culminated in
> 1966 in the first misadventure of the military. And the late Gen.
> Aguiyi-Ironsi, when he was in power decided to abolish the regions and
> introduced unitary system of government. In fact, that generated the first
> reaction. Nigeria by its very nature can't be governed under a unitary
> system. So the reaction was obvious and Ironsi was out and the federal
> nature of the country was restored. But then, Gen. Yakubu Gowon who took
> over from Ironsi also saw this as a problem. And series of efforts were made
> to pacify the various sections of the country in terms of what happened to
> each: the North that was unhappy about its leaders being killed, including
> military officers innocently; the East that was also aggrieved because the
> North reacted the way it did, including the mass protest that led to killing
> of easterners. So Gen. Gowon, after extensive consultations created the
> first 12 states. Nigeria is made up of over 300 ethnic groups. Among them,
> the largest three ethnic groups––the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. So there
> must be so many minorities in different parts of the country. And it is the
> desire for self determination by these various ethnic groups that led to the
> creation of more states. We have moved from three regions to four regions,
> to 12 states, to 19 and today, 36 states, all for each of the diverse ethnic
> groups to make their local affairs felt within the context of the
> federation. This is how people develop. I attended three constitutional
> conferences, and the most central issue of all the debates I participated in
> was power sharing: how power would be shared so that Nigerians could be
> comfortable to feel they are part of the country no matter how small the
> ethnic groups are. This is really the basis of the various discussions on
> power sharing. Despite the creation of states, the northern states had
> always pooled together. And the other states continued to feel threatened by
> this political unity that existed because of northern history. At the 1994
> conference, we agreed that rotation of power should be put in the
> constitution and the draft we produced during that conference included
> rotation of power. But the government that appointed us felt it should not
> be a permanent feature of the Nigerian state. It should be left to the
> parties to determine. We are looking forward to the time Nigerians will
> feel, irrespective of which ethnic group they come from, they can vie for
> any office based on trust.
>
> There was rotation before now. The NPN-controlled government decided, based
> on the support they had then, that this is where this should go. In the
> Shagari days, the Vice-President went to the East, the President of the
> Senate went to the South-South. But most recently the PDP adopted zoning. I
> was one of the founders of PDP, not member. I sat with Obasanjo when he
> declared. When he declared he was not even a member of the PDP. We brought
> him in later. We agreed that the PDP should adopt zoning in its
> constitution. And zoning would be between the North and South. North takes
> its turn, South takes its turn. But later on, when geopolitical zones were
> created, if you look at the constitution there's nothing like geo-political
> system, but an arrangement that would satisfy minorities both in the North
> and the South was adopted. That was how the current so-called geo-political
> arrangement came into being. Otherwise, it was basically rotation between
> the North and South. The party agreed but the debate that followed was:
> where does it start as far as the presidency was concerned? It was hotly
> debated. The North said no, but many of us, who had a lot of history behind
> us about ethnic groups' relationship–and given the fact that we recently had
> the June 12 crisis–decided it should go to the South and specifically when
> it goes to the South, it should go to the South-West. Obasanjo became the
> first beneficiary. And the constitution says the term of any president is
> four years. It was later argued by Obasanjo's second term supporters that
> since the constitution allows the sitting president to run for two terms,
> the zoning should continue in favour of the area he comes from. He got a
> second term based on the principle of rotation of power. Of course he tried
> to extend his tenure but he didn't succeed. The issue that arose immediately
> was that the presidency would come back to the North for the same period.
> And it did. Umaru Yar'Adua became president and Jonathan, from South-South,
> became vice-president.
>
> Let me tell you, there was a proposal in our draft that wherever the
> president comes from, there should be a vice-president, in case of
> eventualities like what happened to the late Umaru. In fact, we recommended
> two vice-presidents–one from the same zone with the president and other one
> from another zone, so that the zone of the president will continue its term
> under the second vice-president. Again the military rejected this. And here
> we are faced with this situation. Of course the constitution is very clear
> that in the absence of the president or in case of death, the vice-president
> takes over. For those of us who know the history, it is a very
> straightforward matter that need not generate any controversy. Jonathan was
> elected with a northern president for four years. They will finish their
> term in 2011 and it stops there, even though the North lost one and half
> years. But here we have Jonathan finishing that tenure. The argument dished
> out by Jerry Gana, Solomon Lar, Gemade and others that Umaru's ticket and
> that of Jonathan are inseparable is nonsense. The presidential election is
> coming in 2011 and under the PDP zoning arrangement, the North still has
> four years to complete an eight-year term. And until the North completes its
> tenure, the zoning arrangement stands.
>
> *But the likes of Jerry Gana, Solomon Lar, Barnabas Gemade and many others
> supporting Jonathan to vie in the 2011 election are equally from the North.
> What do you make of that?*
>
> They were the same people who argued that Obasanjo should continue in office
> even after an eight-year period. They are usually called AGIP––Any
> Government In Power. This is what Jerry Gana has been all his life. And this
> is what Lar at this late stage in his life appears to be propagating.
> Gemade, I am surprised that this is coming from him. Of course he became
> chairman of PDP on the basis of zoning. And there was no election. He was
> handpicked by Obasanjo to replace Solomon Lar from the same zone, on the
> basis of zoning. Since Jerry Gana left the academia, where he worked with
> me, he has always wanted to be in the corridors of power all the time. And
> wherever he sees the opportunity, he jumps at it. So, I am not surprised.
> These were the same people who wanted a third term for Obasanjo, but we
> defeated them.
>
> *One of the arguments put forward by them is that neither the North nor the
> entire country fared well under the leadership of most northerners, so
> opportunity should be given to someone from another zone. How would you
> react to this?*
>
> It sounds nonsensical to me. I told you how power sharing moved from 1960 to
> date. So the issue of the North being in power for many years without
> anything to show for it does not hold water. Jonathan would never have
> dreamt of becoming a vice-president let alone president under an arrangement
> that leaves out zoning, there is no way. And there are so many people of
> similar background like him that would never under the old system have
> dreamt of becoming vice-president or president on the basis of one man, one
> vote. And, apparently, this is being overlooked. And some people say when
> Jonathan becomes president Nigeria will transform into something that it
> wasn't before. This is nonsense. Jonathan was elected with the late Umaru,
> what have they done? People should ask, what have they done as a team of
> president and vice-president? What is it that he's going to do differently
> from what he and Umaru did together? Nobody will stop Jonathan from
> contesting election as president, it is a matter of personal choice. But it
> will not be the choice of the party to put him up as its candidate against
> the zoning arrangement. People argue that afterall, the late Abubakar Rimi
> breached zoning by contesting against Obasanjo. How could Rimi contest and
> get zero from Kano? This is impossible. It was due to the zoning arrangement
> that Kano voted Obasanjo instead of Rimi, its own son. The same thing with
> Gemade who got zero from Benue and Tiv land against Obasanjo or Umaru. It
> was the party's decision that galvanized the forces that determined who won
> the primaries and eventually the presidential election. Our position is
> that, when we finish our eight years, then PDP can revisit zoning and say it
> is time to stop it.
>
> *South-South, the oil-rich region is popularly described as the goose that
> lays the golden egg but deprived of the benefits therefrom. Some opponents
> of zoning want Jonathan who is from that zone to run for president in 2011
> just to make those long suffering people happy? *
>
> I say, where was the South-South in 1914? And where was the South-South in
> 1945, 1960? Where were the eggs being laid and hatched? It is in the record
> that, it was the farmers in the North that produced the groundnuts and
> resources that supplemented the various budgets of the West and East up till
> 1970. Recently, Adamu Fika put down the figures, year by year in terms of
> federal budgets and regional budgets and how much resources had to be wired
> from the northern area to other parts of the country to run their
> governments. Simply because some new ducks are laying eggs now, the chickens
> of previous years are no more important. The notion that the area of the
> country that produces the most resources each time should produce the
> leadership of the country is very nonsensical.
>
> *Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Solomon Lar at different times made
> public pronouncements that the zoning arrangement is not sacrosanct and was
> a situational arrangement to take care of the political crisis then. What is
> your opinion on their position? *
>
> It is because Obasanjo is an idiot. It only takes an idiot like him to
> behave the way he is behaving. But thank God that everybody knows who he is
> or was over the years. Somebody who was picked from the gallows waiting to
> die there, the same person is casting aspersion on those that picked him up
> from the gutters of prison, brought him out, cleaned him up, pardoned him
> his crimes and decided to put him forward to lead this country; in the hope
> that he would perform. We thought, erroneously, that his government's
> performance between 1976 and 1979 was his own. But as it turned out to be,
> we could see that it wasn't his. It was the performance of people like Shehu
> Yar'Adua, T. Y. Danjuma and others that really kept the government together
> and made it to respect the pledge that power be handed over in 1979 to a
> civilian government. It wasn't Obasanjo's decision. I was associated with
> him from 1976. In fact, we were part of a lot of activities that took place
> at the African Leadership Forum, intellectually and otherwise. He again
> created an impression that he was a statesman, an honest man, superhuman and
> other things. But to be honest, how would Nigerians rank Obasanjo from 1999
> to when he left office as president? Every record shows that there has never
> been as much corruption in this country as during that period. Records also
> show that this country has never received the kind of revenue or resources
> it got between 1999 to 2007. It is evident that Obasanjo received more
> revenue than those received from 1960 to when he became president in 1999.
> But where did these revenues go? There was no power supply, nothing worked
> with all the billions that the geese in the Niger Delta were laying. Where
> is the development in the country, including Niger Delta itself? And where
> is the money? The money was stolen by Obasanjo and his kind. There was no
> doubt about it, Obasanjo is unprincipled, both in terms of his social and
> moral behaviours. I'm not surprised that only a few days ago, he referred to
> members of the National Assembly as corrupt. And they reacted quickly and
> said he is the grandfather of corruption. And this is the truth. Here is a
> man who came out of prison with less than N20,000 in his entire account and
> today he is perhaps the richest man in Africa. And people are talking about
> corruption and Obasanjo is walking the street free. Who is deceiving who?
> Nobody takes Obasanjo seriously. Not even members of his family should take
> him seriously because of his immorality and general misbehaviour. He has no
> place to hang his shame, that is why he is all over the place trying to
> introduce this divide-and-rule system. He wanted to extend his tenure during
> his days as president. He organised all sorts of meetings merely targeted
> against the North, and this was where he got his votes.
>
> When he was interviewed the day he was declared president I was there. I
> also granted an interview and I have record of this interview. I moved a few
> metres from where he was and advised those who were abusing him; because the
> West didn't want Obasanjo. Go and check your record, the South-West did not
> want Obasanjo as their candidate, because there were more credible
> candidates from the South-West that should be supported. But we argued with
> them that Obasanjo is the man we picked and we want him to be supported.
> Though people called him a stooge of the North and so on, we voted for him.
> Of course, no sooner than he became president he turned the heat on us. He
> retired our military officers. He set ICPC and EFCC against us and some of
> the governors who disagreed with him. But the baseline is that Obasanjo is
> immoral and corrupt, so he does not have the moral right to speak on where
> power should be zoned to. He doesn't deserve any hearing from any
> respectable person. Anybody that is sensible should run away when he sees
> Obasanjo because he is an added dirt to the environment. For Solomon Lar,
> I'm surprised that at his age he does not respect himself.
>
> *What is your opinion on Edwin Clark and others who have been clamouring for
> Jonathan to vie in 2011?*
>
> This is why I wrote him a letter to remind him. I wrote him a letter
> personally on why he should tread with caution. We visited Warri a number of
> times. We had several meetings with the South-South people–mainly Ijaws–in
> Abuja, and that is how we agreed that they will support a northern
> presidential aspiration. But they will also want a South-southerner to be
> the vice-president, specifically, in the words of Edwin Clark, an 'Ijaw
> man'. There are several tribes in South-South but he insisted on an Ijaw
> man. It worked out in the end. I Hope Clark will remember all these. He is
> not guiding Jonathan along the path of this agreement or understanding that
> it would get to them, after the North would have run its eight years. And if
> things work out the way we plan, the South-South will take its turn in 2015.
> And by that time it is the vice-president from that zone that will perhaps,
> depending on how he performs, emerge as the president. That was our
> agreement. But now, they want to disown that agreement and still want the
> North to support Jonathan to continue as president. Something must be wrong
> with the way they think.
>
> *What do you say of some northerners who are clamouring for Jonathan to
> contest for president in 2011? Ribadu was in Kaduna recently and he openly
> condemned the issue of zoning. Rather, he said merit should be the yardstick
> for considering who is to be voted into office as president.*
>
> These are children and my former students. They have to define merit for us.
> If it is strictly merit, how does Jonathan merit being vice-president, not
> to talk of being president of this country? Merit here means qualification,
> experience, proven ability, proven integrity and so on. This is, I hope, the
> merit they are talking about. Then how does Jonathan, even as
> vice-president, become qualified considering the criteria briefly mentioned?
> And there are so many others. If they are referring to merit in terms of
> themselves personally––because Obasanjo brought them out and used some of
> them against other people––obviously more qualified than either Ribadu or
> el-Rufai or whoever. But he used them for a purpose. And these are the ones
> he wishes to present to people as qualified and as deserving of providing
> leadership for this country. Where is the experience of Ribadu? Where was
> el-Rufai before he was picked up as Minister representing a zone? They know
> they are talking rubbish. When you are talking about merit in Nigeria, each
> tribe has somebody that can be considered as deserving of being the
> president, minister, governor, permanent secretary, chief of army staff, and
> others. Each ethnic group will present who they consider as deserving for
> either an election or an appointment. So, if you go to the Constitution,
> chapter two of it which speaks of the fundamental objectives and principles
> of state policy––which I chaired during one of the constitutional
> conferences––it is very clear that because of the diverse nature of this
> country, no group or individual should monopolise either power or resources
> of this country. We must be seen to reach out to others. And this is the
> basis of this federal character thing which is not being observed in my
> view. Of course, we know that there are good people that could run this
> country and change its direction, but unfortunately, a lot of the good
> people that are talking now, are talking about themselves. If you hear
> somebody talk about himself, then you begin to worry. These people talking
> about themselves, you don't have to dig too far under the carpet to find
> who really they are as per their claim to integrity and competence.
>
> *Now that you are insisting that the zoning system be maintained, if PDP
> succumbs to pressure and gives it to the North, who do you think is credible
> and capable to represent the North come 2011?*
>
> I don't have a candidate, my concern is that the principle of zoning be
> respected, that is all. After then, I can assure you that I will be
> interested in who becomes the president from the North, with good potentials
> and good leadership quality
>
> *If Jonathan eventually contests the 2011 election and emerges as president,
> what will those opposing zoning and his candidature do?*
>
> How would he emerge? Please tell me how. Maybe I will just say his name
> Goodluck has stuck with him, that's all. Because I cannot see him emerging
> president in 2011, except, perhaps, the way he emerged as deputy governor,
> the same way he emerged as governor of Bayelsa State, purely by accident and
> good luck; as he emerged as vice-president again––just by mere accidental
> good luck. That is all I can imagine can happen.
>
> *In a few months Nigeria will be 50. As an elder statesman, do you see any
> reason why the Golden Jubilee should be celebrated?*
>
> No! Except, perhaps, for keeping the name Nigeria. The only period I wish to
> celebrate, to be honest with you, is when our parents managed the affairs of
> this country. Yes, I mean before independence, when the Chief Azikiwes,
> Chief Awolowos, Sir Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of
> Sokoto, governed this country. These are the people that deserve remembrance
> and celebration because when they took over the leadership of this country
> from the colonial masters, they performed to expectation. They took over
> government then from nothing, with nothing in terms of material resources
> for the government, manpower and others. In their days there was only one
> university, the University of Ibadan, which I attended from 1960 to 1964,
> and there were only 2,000 students across the country. So, there was no
> manpower for them as much as they wanted. And there was no back-up resources
> and manpower to use for development. But they went ahead and did so much in
> their respective regions and even at the federal level. Go to the West, we
> had free primary education and cocoa plantations. Palm products were what
> Azikiwe and the rest used to develop the East. In the North here, groundnut
> and cotton were what the northern leadership used to develop the region. But
> of course, they used every penny they could find and that is why they had
> nothing when they left us. So if there is any celebration, it is for us to
> celebrate the hard work of our founding fathers. Thereafter, there is
> nothing else to celebrate.
>
> *The fear of many Nigerians is the heavy use of money to buy votes and
> manipulate the electoral process. What do you advise be done to solve this
> problem of money politics?*
>
> For this group of Nigerians I call jiki magayi, they will get suffering in
> their bones if they submit to the whims and caprices of politicians who use
> them to either snatch boxes or rig elections simply because they are paid
> money that will last only a few days after elections. If they have been paid
> money to rig election, then they should be prepared to suffer another four
> years of hardship because the money they paid them will be recouped. They
> will empty the treasury and there will be no services in the country. If
> they are farmers, there will be no fertiliser and if they are sick, there
> will be no drugs for them in the hospitals. You will see people dying
> everyday because the leaders are insensitive to their yearnings. It is
> unfortunate that voters want to take money for three or four days and suffer
> untold hardship for more than four years. They also get poor leadership for
> mortgaging their political power for money. I want to suggest that a lot of
> public enlightenment be done to educate the electorate on why they should
> shun money politics and vote leaders with proven integrity and good
> leadership attributes. It is the responsibility of journalists and community
> leaders like myself to do this; it is our duty to make sure that people know
> the implication of accepting money to vote a wrong candidate or rig
> elections. We need to let them know that such leaders will wreck the country
> economically if voted into office, and the next thing is a breakdown of the
> social system. India was not too far ahead of us in terms of development
> when we attained independence. Today India is in space doing everything a
> proud nation should do. In Nigeria we cannot manufacture a needle; all that
> we use are foreign. Corrupt leaders should be sent to prison if they have
> been proven to be corrupt. Take the United States for instance. President
> Clinton almost ran into trouble for using telephone from the White House
> during his campaign. His campaign was considered to be a private matter. If
> you see a sitting president campaigning with an aircraft in the US, it is
> hired; it cannot be from state funds. Today, Mrs. Obama is complaining about
> the bills she has to pay every month for food. They have to pay for every
> snack they eat privately. Everybody knows today that 99 per cent of Nigerian
> leaders are just preaching against corruption but they themselves are
> corrupt.
>
> *You were from the academia when the standard of education was something to
> be proud of, but today the story is different. How do you feel about this?*
>
> In our days, not only as a students, but even up to the time we managed some
> institutions, I was privileged to be the Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello
> University. Any Nigerian graduate between 1960 and 1980 is a credible
> academic candidate all over the world. The moment he flashes his B.Sc. or
> B.A certificate in whatever field, irrespective of which country he goes, he
> would be given admission for postgraduate studies because the standard was
> known to be quite high. But of course, just like everything else, from power
> supply to road to water and so on our education standard has fallen. It is
> the same thing that has happened in the education sector. And unfortunately,
> for education the demand is increasing, from primary to secondary and
> tertiary level. You either go for numbers or you go for quality, but,
> preferably, you should go for both. As you increase the number of enrolment
> and opportunities, you should equally provide the basis for high quality,
> standards. But what we have done particularly in the last 30 years is not
> encouraging. Nobody wants to send his child to a public primary or secondary
> school because the standards are not there. You will find in a university,
> if you are studying engineering, no facilities for practicals; if you are
> studying medicine, you don't have the cadavers to learn anatomy and other
> relevant practical courses. So many other courses have similar problems. The
> lecturers are helpless and want to stay on their jobs, so they make do with
> what they have. The result is: you turn out a graduate of zoology who cannot
> dissect an animal, because there are no materials to do so. Our standard of
> education has dropped, yet it is our standard of education that will
> determine the economic and technological advancement of this country. The
> implication is that we will continue to be consumers of products as long as
> our engineers are not properly trained and our technical people are not
> competent.
>
> *In the days of old, when you travelled in the Northern Region, you saw
> large farmlands where cotton, groundnut and other cash crops were planted.
> But today most of the land is empty and the few ones cultivated are done at
> small scale level. As a professor of Agronomy, what should be done to
> redress this? *
>
> The secret behind production is not necessarily mechanisation. In the days
> of groundnut pyramid there were no tractors, yet production level was high
> because the farmers were supported by good policies, technical information
> delivered to them through effective extension services, and there was an
> effective market arrangement that made a farmer plant ahead of time. He knew
> the price of one pound of cotton, a kilogramme of groundnut, so he knew the
> quantity of production to fit what he wanted. And backed up by this,
> fertiliser was available to the farmers at that time. But today, fertiliser
> allows bureaucrats to steal billions in the name of its importation. The
> only fertiliser plant in Nigeria was built in 1980 at Onne, Port Harcourt
> together with the first fertiliser plant in Malaysia. Today, Malaysia has 15
> additional large fertiliser plants; our own, until recently when it was sold
> to Ibori, was not producing one tonne. And this is a country where they say
> agriculture is the mainstay. We gave Malaysia their first palm seedlings
> from Ibadan. Today they are the largest producer of palm oil in the whole
> world and they are already processing palm oil into petroleum product. I
> want the federal government to concentrate on agricultural research services
> and river basins. Of course, agricultural extension services, fertiliser
> supply and delivery are the responsibility of states and local governments
> but they have abandoned it. They are only anxious to receive subventions and
> share it. It is true that the North has abandoned agriculture, and we are
> going to suffer for it. It is stupid to abandon agriculture. We have a large
> number of unemployed youths roaming the streets, looking for unavailable
> employment when they can go to the farm and make a living for themselves. I
> hope something is done to return the North to farming activities.
>
> *Don't you think northern leaders including yourself should be blamed for
> not encouraging agricultural activities in the region?*
>
> Yes, including myself. There is no way I can exonerate myself. As a former
> director of an agricultural research institute, I did my job. Today, you go
> to Samaru, you'll find shelves of technical information that will make it
> possible for our farmers to produce tonnes of maize per head, but they are
> still producing one. The best we can do in research institutes is to produce
> information and the government will take over that information and create
> policies that will encourage production. I can assure you that research
> institutes in Nigeria have done a lot. So, from that point of view I can
> exonerate research institutes. But the real crisis is political will to
> understand the issues and apply solutions to them.
>
> *At a point in time, you were an adviser to former president Obasanjo on
> food and security. What did you do then to ensure that agriculture was
> revived? *
>
> I was an adviser with one line budget of N7.5 million annually. There was
> nothing I could do. It included my salary, salary of my assistants, with
> operating expenses. The whole work they are using now is from my report.
> Until we go back to reviving our agriculture and also synchronise our
> industrial development, we cannot forge ahead. We cannot stimulate economic
> and industrial development when the agricultural sector is comatose. There
> must be raw materials to be processed for industrial use, there must be
> adequate food supply for the economy to grow.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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