The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Abia State chapter, has accused the Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Cliff Agbaeze, of sidelining its members in the disbursement of the African Union Development Agency–New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA-NEPAD) Smallholder Farmers Initiative.
AFAN which also accused the Commissioner of generating fake farmers’ list as beneficiaries of the initiative, called for probe of the format adopted by the Ministry of Agriculture in generating the list of beneficiaries.
Abia State one of the seven pilot states selected to implement the continental programme aimed at empowering smallholder farmers with access to finance, improved inputs, training in climate-smart practices, and structured markets. on August 21, officially launched the AUDA-NEPAD Smallholder Farmers Initiative.
Under the initiative, 17,000 farming households across the 17 Local Government Areas of the state will benefit, beginning with an initial 1,000 farmers in the pilot phase.
Beneficiaries will receive training in sustainable farming, support to reduce post-harvest losses, and improved productivity measures.
Addressing newsmen in Umuahia, AFAN Chairman, Mrs Gift Ogbonna, cried foul over the approach of the Commissioner for Agriculture in handling the programme, and begged Governor Alex Otti to quickly intervene.
She alleged that critical stakeholders including Mayors and Supervising Counsellors for Agriculture were not involved by the Ministry of Agriculture in generating the said list of beneficiaries.
She narrated how the Commissioner allegedly dashed the hope of their members who had enthusiastically thronged the venue of the the distribution of farm inputs during the official launch.
“On hearing the announcement over the radio, Abia Farmers trooped in their hundreds with joy as this is the first of its kind in the State, only for the farmers to be met with rejection, sidelined and embarrassed by the Supervisory Ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Our farmers were denied writing attendance, and they were told that they were not invited, that the Commissioner for Agriculture had an already existing list of farmers that are beneficiaries of this programme.”
Mrs Ogbonna argued that the Commissioner had no justification to sideline a critical stakeholder like AFAN, in deciding matters affecting farmers.
The AFAN boss who claimed that the union is no longer factionalised, also accused the Commissioner of attempts to impose a leadership on AFAN.
She said that the union decided to cry out “to avoid anybody with vested interest from undermining the good intentions of Government in rolling out the initiative.”
“Abia farmers want their voice heard so that no individual will use his office to sabotage the effort of this God-gven administration.”
“The farmers have resolved to call the attention of His Excellency , the Governor to look into the enumeration exercise by the Commissioner of Agriculture because farmers data is essential to facilitate and enable Government make necessary policies to empower farmers”.
According to AFAN, efforts to engage the Commissioner for a dialogue were unsuccessful, hence the press conference.
“All efforts of the AFAN State Executive to have a meeting with the Honourable Commissioner, proved abortive.”
AFAN, however, commended Gov Otti for his agriculture -friendly policies, and development initiatives, pledging its support to his administration.
Adding his voice, the Youth Representative, Dr Chibuzor Obiesili, wondered how such a programme was held without accommodating the youths.
“We are worried because the programme is supposed to be for the youths but no youth was captured. Youths are now showing interest in agriculture. So many of them cultivate yams and other crops in bags in their homes. This programme belongs to them but unfortunately, they were skipped.
“Government intends well for the programme and we are grateful. But let the real farmers be captured. We urge the Government to do the right thing and we are ready to work with Government for the success of this programme.”
Similarly, Women Representative, Mrs Praise Christiana Oby, said women farmers in the state were “in tears,”.
She accused the Commissioner of insulting and embarrassing them during the distribution of the inputs.
“I speak with tears on behalf of Abia women farmers. Those who attended the programme were insulted and they left the venue crying.
“We know that our Governor has good intentions but these women returned home crying because one man decided to hold agriculture hostage in Abia. So, we are appealing that the right thing be done.”
Responding, Commissioner, dismissed the allegations as false and an attempt to blackmail him and the Ministry for their insistence that only genuine and verified farmers should benefit from the initiative.
He explained that the lingering leadership crisis in the union, was the reason the Ministry decided to avoid all the factions in generating the list of beneficiaries.
“I came here as commissioner and met three factions of AFAN. And my position is that the three factions of AFAN should come together and that we’ll have one unified AFAN that will work for the peace and interest of all farmers in Abia State. And up till now, there are still three factions. They have not been able to resolve their tussle.
“It would be wrong to be working with any particular faction when they have not settled their differences.”
On the claims by AFAN that the leadership tussle among them had been settled during a meeting at the office of the Chief of Staff to the Governor which was also attended by the Commissioner, Dr Agbaeze said he was yet to be communicated that the tussle was over.
“It has not been communicated to me”, he said.
The Commissioner denied generating any fake farmers’ list, insisting that those on the list are genuine farmers verified by the Ministry through a transparent mechanism.
He further said that necessary stakeholders including Council Chairmen were carried along during the farmers’ enumeration exercise.
“Their grouse is that we decided to work not with the association, but directly with genuine and verified farmers. Truth is that whether it’s AFAN 1, or AFAN 2, or AFAN 3, we are talking about Abia farmers.
“So it was important that we worked with verified farmers who are members of the various AFANs anyway. We dealt directly with verified farmers weather or not they belong to any faction of AFAN.”
He, however said more farmers would eventually benefit from the initiative as it was still on its pilot stage.
“The input distribution is on-going. if it hasn’t gotten to members of one AFAN, it will most likely get to them eventually. But it cannot get to all the farmers because in this first phase, we are targeting only 1,000 farmers. For the pilot, or the flag off that we did, it was just for 170 farmers, and we selected 10 farmers from each of the 17 Local Government Areas in the state.
Continuing the Commissioner said: “The good thing we are doing in the Ministry of Agriculture is that we have a mechanism that identifies farmers down to their farm. We took time to develop it and we will do a formal launch so that everybody knows what we are doing.
“We have said it several times: If we cannot do anything very well, we will not do it at all. We should build a credible, authentic, reliable, usable database of farmers. And our first definition of a farmer is that they must have a farmland; they must have a space where they are farming; and they will have coordinates of the farm.
“If I type in your name, I should be able to know where you are farming, and the exact coordinates of what you are farming. I should also be able to know what the size of your farm is.
“Whether or not you belong to AFAN, you qualify. That is part of the problem in the past. People come and position themselves to collect things that are made for farmers and utilize it any way they like. At the end of the day it doesn’t get to the genuine farmers.
“But now, we are doing it in reverse order. We make sure that you are a genuine farmer first of all.
The Commissioner who denied the allegation of try to impose a leadership on the farmers, saying he has no prefered candidate, wondered why the factions could not be united.
“Let them come together. What is the big deal? It is still because of vested personal interests that they are finding it difficult to come together. If they truly represent farmers. Why can’t they come together?
“But let the interest of the farmers be protected. That’s what they should focus on. If someone continues to say: ‘it must be me that will represent farmers’, then we’ll have a problem.
“The point we are making is: Let us make sure that genuine farmers are benefitting. If farmers are benefitting and they belong to Afan 1, 2, or 3, I don’t have a problem. But to a group that pretends to represent farmers and they won’t get to the farmers eventually, that’s what I won’t tolerate.”
The Commissioner further said that Government would not hand over the distribution of the inputs to any association but directly handle it to ensure transparency.
“I’m not likely to hand it over to them to redistribute. I will still go to the farmers and make sure the farmers get it. If you belong to the association, beautiful. If there’s any other way you want us to relate with you as an association, we are open. But the farmers must benefit. That’s my primary goal.”
The Commissioner expressed surprise that the same Mrs Ogbonna would turn around to accuse him of sidelining AFAN members after commending him earlier via a WhatsApp message for accommodating AFAN members.
“She attended the programme herself. And it’s funny if she’s the one alleging because I have her on record saying that the farmers in Abia State benefited.
“She sent me a message and said: ‘I am glad that over 80% of the farmers here are AFAN members, and are also beneficiaries of this programme’. That’s what she sent to me on my phone”.
The Commissioner vowed that no amount of cheap blackmail would deter the State Government on insisting on due process.
