Nigeria’s agricultural sector can suffice its lapses – Osinbajo

By Fatima Saka

The Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbajo, says with the right levels of political will and hard work, Nigeria’s agricultural sector can suffice its lapses in the country’s Internally Generated Revenues.

According to Osinbajo who made this assertion, Tuesday, after a presentation by a delegation from the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria Commission, who was on a courtesy visit to the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, made this in a statement he signed on Tuesday titled “With political will, hard work, agriculture can solve internally generated revenue problems, says Osinbajo.”

Also, the Commission’s framework for sustainable agricultural transformation in the states, the Vice President said, “Agriculture can be the solution to a lot of our IGR needs and a lot of our resource needs; it has been proven so many times that it is possible.”

Making reference to the realities of the 1950s and 60s in the agricultural sector in the then regional governments, he noted that “the truth of the matter is that the difference between then and now is the political will. There is no question at all that there is far more information today than there was then but someone has to have the will to do it.

“There is no question at all that any part of Nigeria, if there is sufficient dedication and hard work, can feed the entire country. There are smaller countries not up to the size of one State in Nigeria that are producing enough and exporting products to other parts of the world.” The statement read.

Osinbajo who acknowledged the importance of private sector collaboration in transforming agriculture also emphasised the need for stakeholders to focus on research and development, noting that the progress made by some countries of the world, especially in the area of commercial farming has been hinged on research.

Addressing the concern raised about challenges in developing the agriculture value chain, he stated, “There must be a way of perfecting the value chain and ensuring that the value chain works.

“Of course, it involves logistics, transportation, credit facility, etc. A lot more attention needs to be paid to how that value chain works. No matter how much you are producing, if you don’t work on the value chain, you will just be wasting a lot of the resources.”