The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has opened up on why efforts to deepen agricultural productivity over the year and even currently have remained in variance to results.
In an interview published in the 2017/2018 Nigeria Outlook, an investment and governance journal, Chief Ogbeh averred that one of the key factors that is frustrating every drive in boosting credit schemes from Bank of Agriculture (BoA) is the analogue operating system of the bank.
According to him, the inability to switch to digital banking process has not only impaired efforts to be in tune with modern realities and even in the recovery of over N30bn loans given to farmers over the years.
The minister also revealed that both ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development and Water Resources had constructed about 900 dams, out of which less than 10 per cent had been put into use.
He also decried that reservoirs created by the dams which are supposed to be used to suppress floods and provide water for irrigation, human consumption, industrial use and aquaculture are wasting away.
The 2017/2018 Nigeria Outlook quoted the minister in parts: “We work together (both ministries); we do big and large dams, close to 900. But believe me, less than 10 per cent, maybe five per cent, have been used. Some of the big ones have been there since the Second Republic, wasting away, just full of sand but we are working together now with the Ministry of Water Resources to utilise those resources for irrigation.
“We need irrigation. One of the dangers facing us is that of the possibility of a drought. It comes once in a while in many countries. It has been in Central Africa for nearly seven years now. It’s in East Africa and we fear it might happen. We are going to intensify the irrigation and build the partnership between us and the Ministry of Water Resources to go to the level where when they finish the dam, we can join hands with them and lease it out to farmers.”
