Akpan Okon
Just four months into his four-year tenure, Governor Umo Eno has demonstrated willingness to walk the talk on his promise to transform the agricultural landscape in Akwa Ibom State. The objective is to raise agriculture from the subsistence level it has been for decades to a huge industry that would position the state to be able to feed its people and become a net exporter of food. The governor said this much about his readiness to work at the recent celebration of the 36th anniversary of the creation of the state. “A little over 100 days since I was sworn in as your Governor, I can say that we have hit the ground running and God has been an ever-present guide as we work to translate our vision into practical, measurable and impactful forms,” Eno said in a statewide broadcast to mark the anniversary.
It is not by coincidence that agriculture forms the first leg of his A.R.I.S.E agenda – agricultural revolution, rural development, infrastructure maintenance/advancement, security management and educational advancement.
A man who has spent his entire adult life investing for results, Eno has identified agriculture as one of the key areas for early investment by his administration to allow for bountiful harvests at the expected time. In August, less than three months after he assumed office, the decades-long hospitality operator invited Songhai Farms Investment Nigeria, an internationally renowned agricultural firm to come and help lift the agriculture leg of his development agenda out of the paper on which it is designed to turn it into reality.
The government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Benin Republic-based firm to begin the process of food production that would be technologically driven, with the establishment of model farms in the state. The initiative, which is designed to be a long term partnership, would not only boost food production, but would also generate employment, enhance youth development and promote tourism in the state.
The governor’s statement at the MoU signing ceremony clearly underscores a well-thought-out agricultural project that is on the way to becoming a reality based on strong conviction of success. “I am an entrepreneur,” Eno had said at the epochal event. “I don’t go into businesses that I don’t understand the bottom line. What we want is what you have captured here. Be our development partner. Develop our youths, train them and use them. The things they can do, let them do it.”
A good programme with potential for success comes with timelines for measuring progress. “Transfer the technology and let’s see it in the next one year and then we can upscale,” Eno told the Songhai partners. He thanked them for agreeing to partner the state government on the programme and expressed optimism about its success because of his government’s commitment to achieving food security and improving the standard of living of the people of the state.
Eno has shown with the partnership agreement with Songhai on a project that is going to be the first of its kind in Nigeria that it is time to give life to election promises. His utterances and actions since assuming office indicate he is conscious of the fact that the stopwatch for his four-year tenure started running on May 29, 2023. And the people are counting.
“We have a four-year tenure,” he said. “So by the third year, I should begin to wind down this administration by the grace of God. I should have a clear path that as an investor, I am beginning to get back the money. I want to be able to savour the benefits of this project in the life of this administration.” And since one of the objectives of the project is youth empowerment, he added, “At that time, I must have prepared a group of young people that are also prepared to sustain this so we can upscale easily. These are the things I am looking at as the benefits of this model that we want to create.”
The agricultural revolution the governor has ignited in Akwa Ibom is aimed at creating an environment that would enable farmers to embrace agriculture as a business that could be more profitable than any other, such that would attract people who would otherwise not have been keen on going into the sector. This would involve creating a value chain that would remove a good percentage of unemployed youths, men and women, from the labour market, including the underemployed and make them business owners. It is a value chain that includes farmers, transporters, traders, suppliers in the hospitality industry, exporters, etc.
“Farmers will be made stakeholders in the economic renaissance project,” Eno promises, in the A.R.I.S.E. agenda. “It is worth emphasizing that there is a lot of money to be made in agriculture. Ours must go beyond the rudimentary stage of just making garri, starch, flour and others. Farmers need to be assisted.”
The assistance is going to come in various ways. One of them is increased access to agricultural credit facilities through the Ibom FADAMA Microfinance Bank and other agricultural credit institutions. The government would also provide support through extension services and capacity building using the Akwa Ibom Agricultural Development Programme (AKADEP) that has remained moribund for many years, which the current administration has promised to resuscitate.
The government’s plan to revive AKADEP and facilitate access to agricultural credit facilities is something farmers in the state are eagerly waiting for. Edet Udosen, a small-scale fish farmer in Esit Eket Local Government Area is optimistic of growing his business beyond the level it has been since he established it in February, 2021. He laments the difficulty of obtaining credit from banks who ask for security he cannot provide.
“This business is lucrative, but it’s capital intensive,” he said. “Inability to access loan facilities from banks has made it difficult for me to grow the business beyond the level I set it up more than two years ago.”
He believes that accessibility to credit facilities by farmers in the state would enable them to adopt mechanized farming and operate on a larger scale like their counterparts in some northern states, for greater farm yield and increased food production. Besides, it would make agriculture attractive enough for more people to see it as a business, especially because of its multi-dimensional nature. “We are talking about a wide range of sub-sectors like crop farming, aquatic farming, livestock, snail farming and many others,” Udosen said. “These sub-sectors can individually provide food and create employment.”
With the A.R.I.S.E. agenda, Eno is trying to revive what had been a tradition among people in that part of the country before the advent of oil – agriculture – on a scale never before seen in the state. He hopes to fully exploit the state’s agricultural endowments, which include a coastline that stretches 129 kilometers from Oron to Ikot Abasi – the longest in Nigeria – to build a state where food security would be guaranteed for the people of the state and future generations.
.Okon, an industrialist, lives in Uyo
