Fertilizer subsidy in Nigeria may be just as plagued by corruption and general lack of accountability as it is with petroleum subsidy, if the words of the country’s agriculture minister are anything to go by.
The minister, Dr. Adewumi Adesina, on Tuesday disclosed that the delivery system of subsidized fertilizer to farmers both by the federal and state governments was fraught with irregularities and corruption.
Speaking at the Women Development Centre, Awka, the Anambra State capital, during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on agriculture development between the Federal Government and the Anambra State government, he said the era of subsidising fertiliser for farmers in the country was over.
According to Dr Adesina, only 11 per cent of the subsidised fertiliser got to the genuine farmers, while the rest would be diverted by those he described as corrupt ‘political’ farmers.
“Government stopped subsidising fertiliser because we found out over the years that only about 11 per cent of the subsidised fertiliser got to the real farmers and that is to say that the system is a corrupt system,” he said.
The minister also lamented that agriculture had continued to suffer in the country because only five per cent of the genuine farmers used improved seedlings, adding that it had been the major problem facing agriculture.
“Government is making agriculture work and plans have been concluded to make Nigeria self-sufficient in rice production in the next four years. Abakaliki rice is the best rice in the world; it tastes better than the rice from China. In the area of cassava production, Nigeria is the largest cassava processing country in the world, with about 34 metric tonnes and we have about 1.3 billion dollars cassava processing plans in Nigeria,” he said.
Earlier, the Anambra State governor, Mr. Peter Obi had said that his administration had perfected plans to create jobs through agriculture, adding that it was the only catalyst that would revamp the economy of the country.