Unperturbed that its aim of providing food in excess for local consumption and export, raw materials for agro-industries, employment for the teeming youths as well as alleviating poverty was frustrated in the year 2008, the Delta State Government has continued to wax stronger in its determination to diversify the economy of the oil rich state by making it the food basket of the nation.
That year, 950 youths of the state origin dumped agriculture as a profession, alongside some fraudulent farmers and made away with the millions of naira earmarked for their training and starter-packs by the Governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan.
Since the oil rich state was carved out of the defunct Bendel State in 1990, agricultural sector remains the largest employer of labour in the state, with about 75 per cent of its people depending on it for their livelihoods and has contributed approximately 13 per cent of the state’s Gross Domestic Product after oil, which constitutes 79 per cent.
The 950 youths, who absconded, alongside the Farmers’ Support Programme, were inaugurated in 2008 by Governor Uduaghan after his predecessor’s Live and Own A Farm programme failed to yield the desired result. They were trained to specialize in poultry, fishing, piggery and snailry as agricultural businesses in Shongai-Amukpe via 25 Youth Empowerment Through Agriculture cluster sites established by Governor Uduaghan shortly after he assumed office and empowered with farm inputs and other starter-packs before they ran away with soft-loans of N600 million they were empowered with.
While a total of 3,921 farmers, out of which 2,221 were crops farmers, 500 were poultry farmers and 200 were pig farmers, with 1,000 as fish farmers under the Farmers’ Support Programme from across the state justified their soft loans of N600 million, the 950 youths dumped agriculture as a profession, having allegedly concluded within them that ‘the money they got and other things were their own share of the political largesse.’
Although, the donor’s (Governor Uduaghan) intention was not respected, the governor remain undeterred in his policy thrust on “achieving agricultural growth and development, thereby, improving the socio-economic status and development of the state”.
In conjunction with the state’s Directorate of Science and Technology, headed by Sunny Ofili, the agricultural sector of the state approved the training of Master-Bakers and has through it collaborated with the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, saddled with the responsibility of isolating/researching and showcasing the existing raw materials, to realize the blending of cassava flour mixed with wheat flour to make Cassava bread.
Speaking through Ofili, recently in Asaba, Governor Uduaghan said: “Training/workshop have been organized in the area of agro-processing for Deltans, specifically plantain processing into chips and flour” even as he hinted that over N7 million was spent between 2007 and 2011 alone on purchasing computer sets and others accessories for Delta State Secondary Schools, adding that N1.3 billion was incorporated into the 2012 budget to build the state’s ICT park for the targeted sustainable development.
While he listed the target audience to include students in Senior Secondary Schools, Uduaghan said: “The park, when completed, will in its first three years, create about 15,000 entrepreneurs in the ICT sector and another 10,000 jobs for those who will support this new industrial base.” He added that the park would provide rentable, lease out spaces for business process outsourcing, software development, IT training and services, business incubation and other ITES services.
Ofili was categorical that his boss had in the past seven years pursued his three point agenda of peace and security, human-capital and infrastructural development with unfettered spirit and developed other strategy tagged: “Catch Them Young” for the teeming youths of the state. In realizing this, what did the governor do? “He approved N9 million for Young Farmers Clubs, thereby organizing trainings and sponsorship of quiz competitions in 45 secondary schools across the state and provided seeds, sprayers, tarpaulin ponds, fingerlings and fish feeds, to stimulate interest in the young farmers to promote agriculture,” Ofili revealed.
Corroborating Ofili, his counterpart in Agriculture, A. Ukubeinje, said in line with the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government being co-sponsored by several international financial donor agencies such as the United Nations Children’s Education Fund, United Nations Development Fund, World Bank, IFAD, USAID, UNIDO, etc and other local donors as in the Niger Delta Development Commission, the Bank of Industry and the Central Bank of Nigeria, Delta State swiftly keyed into them through payment of counterpart funds on FADAMA III, Root and Tuber Expansion Project, Community-Based Natural Resources Management Project and Animal Traction and Hand Tools Technology Programme, and attracting a number of agricultural development projects into the state for the benefit of the farmers, the Governor goes on institutional strengthening and capacity building of community groups, substantive livelihood development and small scale community infrastructure.
Hear him: “While to date, 10,314 persons made-up of 5,516 male and 4,798 female in 616 FADAMA Users Groups in 75 FADAMA Community Association across 17 Local Government Areas have benefitted, to the tune of N300,594,421,68, most of these enterprises have started yielding returns on their investments as they have run their full circles. The IFAD/NDDC funded programmed i.e. the Community Based Natural Resources Management Programme, which commenced in 2007, with three council areas, have improved the quality of life and standard of living of at least 400,000 rural poorest of the poor households in the Niger Delta region, even as approximately 44,444 poor rural household are targeted.”
Although, hi-tech fraud rocked the N1 billion the state accessed via Commercial Agriculture Credit when some farmers attempted to swindle their colleagues of their cheques, 926 farmers however benefited through Cooperative Societies from the N973,800,000.00, even as N21,654,000.00 was paid for the Nigeria Agricultural Insurance Scheme.
The state recently excelled in its Public-Private-Partnership initiative as it went ahead to woo and encourage investors. Aside the Feed Africa Project, which the state initiated with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, designed by the Human Security Centre, the state has partnered the Obasanjo Farms Nigeria with N3 billion Commercial Poultry Production and Processing Complex established at Ogwashi-Uku, Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state. The project has since taken off and absorbed over 246 persons with the catchment area having the highest number of employees, even as over 75 per cent egg distributors were said to have registered.
The State Government has also announced its intention to establish 10 industries in its determination to finish strong next year in promoting Medium and Small Scale Enterprise. This was made known at a Town Hall Meeting with owners of SME’s in the state. The governor outlined the industries to include, four Fish Feed Mills and six Cassava Processing Plants.
To make fulfil his promise, Governor Uduaghan assembled some German partners on Youth Development Programme, where the youths would acquire technical skills on various fields of endeavour. He said: “We have appealed to Germany when the Ambassador came, to assist us in training our talents in technical and vocational skills.” No wonder, the governor’s Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Kingsley Emu, explained that N1 billion SMEs loan has been provided for by the state government and the Bank of Industry to boost the programme.
The Commissioner maintained that the Ministry recorded about 80 per cent default after the disbursement of 20 per cent of the N1 billion loan, noting that the Ministry had stopped further disbursement to map out strategies on how to improve on the process, even as he highlighted the reasons for the default by Co-operative Societies to include lack of ability to appropriately manage the loan and lack of adequate monitoring and supervision by the Financial Institutions.
Hr insisted: “One of the strategies, we have put in place is to encourage banks to assist SMEs with funds and reduce their interest rate to enable them pay back within the stipulated period of two years.”
His counterpart in Science and Technology, Ofili, further explained that the Technology Incubation Centre in the oil city, Warri, was established solely by the state government to bring to fore the creativity and ingenuity of indigenous and budding innovators in the state. He said: “The TIC concept is not a skill acquisition centre but a forum for the promotion of technology transfer between research, institutions, Universities, inventors and small/medium scale enterprises. These entrepreneurs are expected to incubate and nurture their ideas into reality, thus producing prototype using almost 100% local content in process technology, design and formulation including fabrication of equipment. To prove its worth among the comity of agricultural driven state, the state has girded its loins to host the former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Feed Africa Project, designed by the Human Security Centre, which was inaugurated in Abeokuta, Ogun State during the former president’s birthday.”
“Delta State” Ukubeinje corroborated, “has been chosen as a pilot state for this programme. It is basically an agricultural programme aimed at wealth creation through agricultural production/value chain. The programme is to be executed in the 25 local government areas of the state. Each council will execute approved agricultural programme where it has a comparative advantage. We are pleased to host this pilot project in the continent of Africa.”
The efforts of Uduaghan to boost the state’s human-capital development was nevertheless without a hitch following an alleged fraud that later rocked the N1 billion loan the state disbursed to farmers across the state.
Eagle online gathered that the Federal Government via the Central Bank Agriculture Loan Scheme provided the loan to states across the federation to boost food production and assist farmers to go beyond their subsistence farming into commercial agriculture, which over 934 cooperative societies benefited from in the state. Despite the fact that the governor presided over the disbursement and warned the beneficiaries against diverting the loan to unproductive ventures such as marrying new wives and buying of cars, the beneficiaries still disrecpected the donor’s intention. While some ghost farmers were said to have forged certificates in order to access the loan, others made frantic efforts to steal other farmers’ cheques.
Ukubeinje however allayed the fears of Uduaghan. He said: “In the N1 billion loans, there were a lot of fraud my office have detected, some people came with fake certificates, some tried to collect other peoples cheques but we are investigating them, at the end of the day, I will give my report to His Excellency (Governor Uduaghan) or where necessary, the police.”
Disbursing a cheque of over N21 million to beneficiaries of the State Employment and Expenditure for Result, $4 million to finance the implementation of FADAMA III project during the flag-off of the project to 37 FADAMA Users’ Groups to four FADAMA Community Associations at Otor-Udu, headquarters of Udu Local Government Area of the state, recently, Ukubeinje, who hailed the deft strategy deployed by his boss to bring his ‘Delta Beyond Oil’ pursuit to reality, said the empowerment would not only enhance livelihood but give the youths and women farming oriented-results. He warned the beneficiaries from statching away the money again but emulate the compliance stance of the state in its prompt payment of counterpart funds in a bid to wax stronger in diversifying its economy from over-dependence on oil.
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