Nigeria: From black curse to green curse?

By

Edebhagba Justice

“Agricultural revolution” has been a constant and recurring political mantra for successive administrations since the wobbly beginning of Nigeria’s 4th republic; and to this effect, several frameworks and roadmaps have been cobbled together in abortive attempts to restore the country back to its glory days as a major food basket of the world. Even now, I can still remember the high-pitched resounding boom of Mrs. Tijani’s voice, my current affairs teacher in primary school, as she attempted to pound the meaning of the colours on the Nigerian flag into our 9-year-old skulls. Her assertive bellowing of “green means agriculture and white means peace!” was met with shifting feet and monotonous choruses. It is indeed rather ironic that since then (about 13 years ago), till today, Nigeria is experiencing neither monumental agriculture, nor collective peace.

Unlike in the 1950s’ and 1960s’ when agriculture provided 97% of all revenue from exports and financed the nascent republic; the 1970s’ and 1980s’ marked the beginning of a dramatic shift from an agriculture based economy to an oil based one. The advent of the oil boom was escorted by the infamous “oil curse”, when the governments of the time became so intoxicated with the easy oil money that they neglected all other sectors of the economy. Through the years, the country has grown to become so dependent on its oil earnings (which makes-up about 90% of all foreign earnings) that it has become a victim of the constantly fluctuating oil prices and galloping international geopolitical dynamics.

Thankfully, the instability of the international oil market has jolted the country blinking blearily to the realization that there is urgent need for economic diversification. With the onset of the 4th republic, agriculture has been the epicenter of government diversification efforts, with the rationale that Nigeria possesses about 84 million hectares of arable land and that agriculture constitutes over 30% of our GDP, it would naturally seem appropriate. However, the question that often bogs my mind whenever the subject of agriculture is brought up is; can Nigeria be truly prosperous solely through agriculture?

While food security is very paramount for any nation that ever aspires to become fully developed (especially a nation with leap-frogging population statistics), the key to true national development lies in the ability of a nation to grow its industries. The crazed scramble for agricultural exports being pursued by the government will only propel the country back to the days when we were a mere net exporter of raw agricultural produce and an inveterate importer of finished products (much like it still is today, only with lesser agricultural exports). While the current “agrinomics” narrative may appeal to the general feeling of reminiscence, care must be taken not to substitute one curse for another (in this case, the black curse for the green curse). The government must realize that this is the 21st century (in case they haven’t noticed) and Nigeria no longer has comparative advantage in terms of agricultural exports.

Many may argue that agriculture will provide jobs and solve all our economic problems in one fell swoop, infact, some (including President Buhari), have even advised youths to engage themselves by going “back to the farms”. But the truth is; modern smart agriculture does not require much manpower, hence, the idea that all our youths will get engaged through tilling the soil or rearing chicks is grossly over-exaggerated. It is also noteworthy that agriculture is very capital intensive, where is a fresh graduate supposed to get the money to acquire land or tractor?. Even those who already have farms are having to contend with marauding herdsmen, while the government make all manners of excuses.

The government should pursue agriculture, yes, but it should not be seen as an alternative to oil, neither should it be at the expense of developing our industries. Nigeria should focus on building industries, on manufacturing our own utilities, and to this effect, necessary enabling infrastructures and incentives needs to be put in place. Our failure to industrialize saw us exporting crude oil, and then buying back refined petroleum products with a large chunk of our oil earnings, instead of making our refineries work. The same will happen to our agriculture sector if we fail to industrialize at the expense of pursuing agricultural dominance; we will start exporting yam and then use the earnings to import “European grade” packaged yam flour. Only by building industries will millions of youths get employed and the nation experience prosperity and peace.

Nothing will work with quota system.