In a rather ironic twist, the federal government which introduced the naira redesign policy now admits its deleterious consequences
The Federal Government has bemoaned the rate at which farmers are going bankrupt in the country due to the naira redesign policy pushed through by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from December 15, 2022 to early February this year when the Supreme Court ruled against it.
This was as lawmakers in the national ssembly lamented the rate of hunger and famine in the country, resulting into deaths of the poor in rural areas.
These issues were raised before the national assembly joint committee on agriculture when the minister of agriculture and food security, Senator Abubakar Kyari appeared on Monday, 11th December, 2023.
According to him, a number of issues, including insecurity and the implementation of the naira redesign policy approximately a year ago, have severely jeopardised the country’s food security by impoverishing farmers.
“The cash crunch caused by the naira redesign made most of the farmers sold their farm produce at give away price for survival , since buyers couldn’t access cash to buy the produce from them. The policy which coincided with harvest season, ended rendering the farmers empty financially,” he said.
In their separate remarks at the session, Rep. Dahiru Ismaila Haruna (APC, Bauchi State) and Rep Ademorin Kuye (APC, Lagos State), raised the alarmed on the urgent need by the federal government to address the high rate of hunger in the country largely caused by insecurity.
Rep. Haruna in his remarks said “Being from the North East, the picture i’m about to paint shouldn’t be stranged to you at all. The pathetic picture of people dying of hunger on a daily basis while the majority of those surviving feed once a day.
“Making it worrisome is the fact that even people from neighboring countries like Chad, Niger, Benin Republic and Central Africa, are trooping in to mop up the little food, signaling total famine in the area if not urgently addressed by stockpiling the silos.”
However, Rep. Ademorin, in his own remarks dismissed the use of silos, saying most of them built by the President Jonathan administration were allegedly concessioned for N20 million each.
The minister assured the lawmakers that all issues brought up were being considered and would be taken seriously in the fiscal year 2024.
According to Kyari, the ministry has repositioned itself to allow for the actualization of President Bola Tinubu’s agenda, of which food security is the most important of the eight points. he reeled out the ministry’s agenda as follows:
“Reviewing the mechanisms and processes for delivering fertilizers and agro pesticides input to farmers under a transparent and accountable regime.
“Fast – track the take off and operations of the national agricultural development fund.
“Implement a joint action plan with the federal ministry of water resources to unlock the huge irrigation potentials of the river basins development authorities and other flood plains in the country to guarantee all year round food production etc.”
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Earlier in his submission, he told the committee members that for the 2024 fiscal year, a total of N362.940 billion was earmarked for the sector out of which N124.1 billion is for the ministry.
The breakdown of the N124.1 billion according to him, shows that N10.6 billion is for personnel cost, N1.34 billion for overhead and N112.497 billion for capital expenditure.
