By Emmanuel Ajibulu
Agriculture Minister, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, has risen in defence of the achievements of his ministry, saying they are unassailable.
Adesina spoke against the backdrop of the criticism by a former minister in the ministry, Mallam Adamu Bello, who described the achievements as non-existent.
Renown economist and public affairs analyst, Prof. Pat Utomi, among others, echoed the minister’s sentiment.
Bello had challenged Akinwumi’s claim to achievements in the agriculture sector.
An aide to the minister, Olukayode Oyeleye, who responded on behalf of his principal, wanted the former minister to show what positive reforms his seven-year tenure brought to the agriculture sector.
“It will help greatly for Adamu Bello to point to the number of investments generated in seven years, whereas, within two years, under Adesina, Nigeria has attracted US$4 billion in private sector investments in the agricultural sector,” he said.
He continued: “Adamu Bello never told Nigerians the truth about his actual performance in office. Let him give details commodity-by-commodity, and let him state where and how this impact was felt. In 2004, under Adamu Bello, there was something interesting about growth rates in agricultural sector. His ‘perfect’ growth rate of 6.50% for crop production, 6.50% for fisheries, 6.50 % for livestock and 6.50% for forestry should raise eyebrows as this smacks of some form of cosmetic and fuddled growth statistics, an indication of some tinkering somewhere. Earlier in the year, Adamu compared his seven years in office with Adesina’s first agriculture year in 2012, relying on National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) alone. In doing so, he was one-sided in his analysis, seeking to confuse Nigerians with manipulative figures”.
To Utomi, the claim by Bello is unfortunate and laughable. The foremost economist argued that under the current dispensation, the ministry of agriculture has reconstructed its relationship with farmers so well that today Nigeria is close to achieving sufficiency in food production.
“Today, they have blocked leakages in farmers’ access to fertilizers, provision of real-time information to farmers through making available handsets to farmers across the country. The current minister has also helped farmers in dry season farming”.
Taking a swipe at the posturing of the former minister, Damian Ilenre of the Farmers Initiative in Benin wondered whether Bello left any personal belonging in the office he left years ago “that he suddenly realised must be retrieved.” He added that in a civilized community, former public officers of former minister’s ilk should be hiding their heads in the face of the landmark achievements being recorded in that sector under the current dispensation.
“May be he needs to be reminded of the N14billion fertilizer contract scam that rocked his tenure for him to keep quiet,” Ilenre added.
Also, the Chairman, Umza Rice and chairman, Rice Processors Association, Mohammed Abubakar, said that Adesina created incentives for seed and fertilizer companies to develop supply chains to reach farmers directly in the country. He noted that Adesina has succeeded in attracting $5billion worth of investments by the private sector into local fertilizer manufacturing.
A media practitioner and Chairman of 3D Global Leadership, Dr Victor Oladokun, said Bello’s claim was a pack of lies, stating that Adesina has achieved more in two years than Bello achieved in his seven years as agriculture minister. In a statement, Oladokun said his research into Bello’s eight-year tenure, the longest ever for an agriculture minister, showed that he did not achieve anything worth talking about.
“I also spoke with farmers, private sector executives, and agribusiness leaders. My findings and the collective scorecards of those I spoke to was that, at best, he was lacklustre,” he said, reminding Bello that success is not judged by how long someone stays in office, but by what was achieved during that period.
He accused Bello of superintending over an agriculture ministry notorious for its brazen fertilizer fraud and other anomalies. According to Oladokun, within two years, Adesina ended the corrupt, crony-driven fertilizer racket that helped serve the interest of the rich and the politically powerful, and turned farmers into paupers.
Countering Bello’s claim that the federal government gives farmers two bags of fertilizer, Oladokun challenged the former minister to tell Nigerians how many bags farmers got under his tenure.
He said, “The farmers know better. Their fertilizer was hijacked and ‘shared’ by the elite. So shady was the direct fertilizer procurement system that Nigeria was known to have one of the worst cases of fertilizer corruption in the world.
Just ask the millions of farmers who today receive fertilizer directly, without needing middlemen or political cronies.”

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/agric-minister-challenges-predecessor-unlike-evidence-performance/#sthash.MHCBx5rK.dpuf

Someone should have slapped that bello of man for his 7 years of waste.

even as an APC man ....this man has done better than any agric minister i know

APC: always blind to good things.

All they want is to return the Presidency back to the North and Islamic rule.

lol.

This should be on front page.

The Agric Minister under GEJ is the only good thing GEJ can boast of

atlwireles:
This should be on front page.

Ditto!