How corruption jeopardizes food security in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation

Today, data shows 7 out of every 10 Nigerians are food insecure.

According to a 2021 report by Onyenekenwa Cyprian Eneh, titled ‘Nagging Food Insecurity Amidst Numerous Public Agricultural Policies, Strategies, Programmes and Projects in Nigeria: Identifying and Fixing the Key Issues’, there are six key issues that need to be fixed in order for Nigeria’s food insecurity to be tackled.

Eneh identified the issues as the predominance of smallholder subsistence farming, use of rudimentary tools, unimproved varieties of seeds and other inputs, traditional storage and preservation practices, the deficit of marketing infrastructure, and dependence on rain-fed agriculture.

[Agronomist Victor Olowe said] the basic needs of this category of farmers are inputs, seeds, fertilisers, agrochemicals, and these have to be made available to them. Olowe recalled when Akin Adesina, the former Nigerian agriculture minister, introduced the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) via the electronic wallet scheme (e-wallet); an electronic system that uses vouchers for the purchase and distribution of agricultural inputs.

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Hence, the government could track who got fertiliser, when they got it, and how much was paid.

Reports later had it that bags of fertilisers were diverted for personal gains and when supplied, they were either adulterated or underweight.

“Political farmers manipulated the scheme for their own gains. So, if any intervention in itself will be meaningful, it should be one that makes it easy for the real and actual farmers to have access to inputs,” said Olowe.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here