The Food and Farmers’ Rights Campaigns (FFRC) has slammed the appointment of Mohammed Babangida as the chair of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA). In a statement released today by Eko John Nicholas, coordinator of the FFRC, the group described President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Babangida, the son of former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida, as a cynical political move with an eye on the 2027 presidential (s)election. The statement is reproduced in full below.
Appointment of Mohammed Babangida as chair of Bank of Agriculture (BOA) is for 2027 election politics, not meant to be beneficial to the majority of smallholder and poor farmers
FFRC calls for democratic control of BOA to guarantee access to credit facilities devoid of stringent conditionalities
The Food and Farmers’ Rights Campaigns (FFRC) views the recent appointment of Mohammed Babangida as the chairman, Bank of Agriculture (BOA), as a clear demonstration of sacrificing the objective of the agency on the altar of a desperate political calculation for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu in 2027. In other words, this appointment will not likely change the situation of smallholder and poor rural farmers who suffer unmitigated alienations, and lack of access to cheap credits to finance the agricultural productions.
The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) was incorporated as Nigerian Agricultural Bank (NAB) in 1972 and became operational in 1973 to carry out the functions of a development finance institution for the agriculture and rural development. The BOA is reputed as the single largest agricultural financial institution in Nigeria, completely owed by the federal government, with several branches across the country. However, it has always benefited the rich few local farmers and foreign multinational agricultural corporations, who have unlimited access to credit facilities. While, for the mass majority of poor rural and smallholder farmers, it has been much easier for them to find a lost pin in the ocean, than to gain access to credit facilities for agricultural productions due to uphill and stringent conditionalities attached to securing loan facilities from the BOA.
For instance, among other conditionalities, poor rural and smallholder farmers’ are expected to present land titled documents, fat bank accounts and other securities as collateral before they can access loans, even as low as N500,000. This is in addition to high interest rates of between 25-30 percent with repayments period (moratorium) of just six months. All this without consideration or recourse to the special nature of agricultural productions due to its unpredictable vagaries. It’s an indisputable fact that the current worsening food insecurity and the resultant hunger and hardships, among other factors, can’t be separated from the inability of the over 70 percent of smallholder and poor rural farmers who produce over 80 percent of the nation’s food requirements to gain access to cheap credits to finance and improve their agricultural productions and associated value chains.
As already stated, we believe that the appointment of Mohammed Babangida, a scion of the former military president Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who also ruined the lives of many households with the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP), as proscribed by the IMF and World Bank, by President Tinubu is over 2027 election politics rather than a genuine proactive efforts to reposition the BOA to address and close the financing and investment gaps in agriculture and its value chains, as it affects the poor Farmers’.
In any case, regardless of whoever is appointed as the chair of the agency, for the BOA to meet the yearning and aspirations of the majority, who are smallholder and poor farmers, for increased agricultural productions through availability of cheap credits in particular and addressing the current worsening hunger crisis bedevilling the nation in general, the FFRC calls for the democratic control and management of the institution. This would ensure that the decision-making processes of the BOA regarding its operations and management as it affects the lives and business of majority through financing agriculture for increased production are not limited to a few handpicked individuals by the government. Rather, such decision-making process including guidelines for accessing credit facilities, amounts, duration, interest rates among others, will be taken democratically involving elected representatives of smallholder and poor farmers and other relevant interest groups. This would also prevent to a large extent, the corrupt practices and self-enrichments of management staff, board members and senior cadres, through award of fictitious loans to cronies and front companies, deliberate short-changing of poor farmers through stringent conditionalities attached to loans etc.
Linked with provisions of agro production subsidies and massive investment together with democratic management in agriculture and other sectors like healthcare, education, housing, industries etc by the government at all levels like could contribute to setting the pace for an improvement in the living conditions and livelihood of the majority. But with Mohammed Babangida at the helm of affairs of BOA, and the anti-poor capitalist policies of the Tinubu administration, achieving this would be extremely difficult. However, a mass struggle of working people and poor farmers can force some concessions.
FFRC therefore calls on smallholder and poor farmers, youth and working people to be prepared to struggle with support for the measures stated above as well as the demands for the total reversal of all anti-poor policies including fuel subsidy removal, devaluation of the naira, among others, and a struggle for socialist reconstruction of Nigeria.
Eko John Nicholas
Farmer and National Coordinator Food and Farmers’ Rights Campaigns (FFRC)
