Nigeria’s future depends on agriculture –Nkem-Abonta

Hon. Uzoma Nkem-Abonta is a PDP member representing Ukwa East and Ukwa West Federal Constituency of Abia State. Currently, he is sponsoring a bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Export and Commodity Brokers of Nigeria that has just passed second reading. In this interview, he spoke with GEORGE OPARA on the objectives and merits of the bill and other political matters. Excerpts.

What informed your sponsoring of the bill for an act to provide for the establishment of the Chartered Institute of Export and Commodity Brokers of Nigeria ? 
 Well, you see, it depends on where you have interest. Mine is on agriculture and adding value to agricultural products. You can see that we now depends on oil and having one single form of revenue wouldn’t be healthy for any nation. Currently, oil is no longer doing well. The oil price is falling internationally and nationally which is giving us a great concern. Be that as it may be, we have to virtually depart from oil-based revenue, diversify and seek ways and means through which we can increase our revenue. Any country that depends on import will never have a foreign exchange reserve.

Therefore, the essence of this is to make sure we begin to export what is exportable, add value to agricultural products and then see what we can do. You see, most Nigerian agricultural products cannot meet export requirements because they don’t have the required improvements on them. We must add value. If, for instance, you want to export cocoa, you must add some value. May be in terms of packaging and preservation and so on .So, there will be nothing to lose, we have all to gain, if we have the institute that will be able to control, regulate, research and improve what we can produce.

This bill seeks to establish the chartered institute of export and commodity brokers of Nigeria to be charged among other things with the responsibilities to determine the level of education needed before a person can become a member of the institute and to practice export and commodity trade as a business. It further seeks to establish a governing council of the institute which shall have the responsibility of managing the institute, setting up operational standard for educators and practice requirements.

Objectives of the bill are not far fetched. The main objective of this bill would be to promote industry and commerce particularly exports and international trade which is the corner-stone of every country’s foreign exchange earnings. So, what do we do in Nigeria if we don’t export? The bill also seeks to research and locate all exportable products from agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods that are available in Nigeria for export.

If we are to research for these goods, locate them, put them in exportable form and export them our country will be better for it. Also, the institute would partner with relevant agencies and companies in creating an interchange point between the commodity producers, Nigerian distributors and export merchants for the storage of their products and to quicken product’s inspection for export.

And liaise with federal, state and private sector, local governments and relevant agencies in Nigeria on how to make all export processing zones in Nigeria to be functioning, viable and to see that more of such are established for the promotion and exportation of make in Nigeria goods. You can see that most free zones are not functioning.

What happened to TINAPA? What happened to most free zones? They are not working. They are not functional and are not optimally used because of lack of knowledge, interest and not been adequately informed and even when informed, they don’t know how to export. Therefore, the bill seeks to train most Nigerians on commodity trade, practical approach to export as a business and on how to benefit from untapped commodity wealth in Nigeria. What is Malaysia and Singapore doing today?

Malaysia is exporting agricultural products like palm oil. What about cocoa? Ghana is surviving from cocoa. That’s what they are doing. Can’t we export our ginger? Can’t we export our cassava, groundnut or palm oil? Do you know that palm oil is more expensive than crude oil? A litre of petrol is N90.00 and a bottle of red oil is N300.00. And a drum of crude oil internationally is less than 50 dollars which if converted to naira is less than N15, 000. A drum of red oil is over N100,000. So, why are we wasting time? This is God-given.

Therefore, you can see that the responsibility of the commodity brokers will be to research and identify all products be it agricultural or mineral resources in either semi-manufactured or finished products for export and, serve as intermediary between the commodity producers and export merchants.

So, if you look at the merits of the bill, it will improve success factors of government export promotion policy and associate with government for better export policy implementation. Which means our export policy will be encouraged. The government ideas or concern for export must be pushed. It must be private sector-driven.

And this bill seeks to establish the institute that will drive that If you say government says export, if it is not private-driven, we are going nowhere because government has no business in doing business. That’s why the export promotion council with part of its objectives to encourage export is not doing much. And it is not going to do much better. It can only do what it is doing now.

But with this institute, it will be able to research and determine what is exportable and how we can harness the government policy to achieve what we want? That is what I considered and that is why I sponsored this bill for consideration.

What about the roles of the commodity brokers?
The commodity brokers are to research and identify all products be it agriculture, mineral resources and manufactured goods either semi-manufactured or finished goods for export. And the brokers serve as intermediary between the commodity producers and export merchants. Let me give you an example, if you need to export palm oil, you must be able to have them in exportable quality, in good shape and well stored. And you know that you can get the best quality of palm oil if you mill them within 2-3 days of harvest.

These local farmers cannot do that. They don’t even have the machine to mill it. Therefore, a commodity broker who installs a mill will lure the local farmers to come there and mill and they pay the cost of what is milled. He secures it and gets a buyer who comes to the point to trade. So, the commodity broker is the link between the producer and buyer. Also, this method and process can be applied to other products for export trade.

Thus, it will create employment, it will create economic viability. It will also get us foreign exchange. Recall, former President Obasanjo went into cassava initiative without even making plan for export. That year, the whole country was flooded with cassava. There was cassava slump.

We could not preserve and export the cassava. The farmers lost. The following year, they refused to farm. So, this institute will be able to fill that gap through research, warehousing etc. why is it that when you order one shipload of rice from America, they get it for you? It is because of the brokers who have arranged production, adding value, storage shipping and packaging. And that problem is gone off the farmer.

The farmer only produces, makes his money. Somebody adds value, stores and arranges for export. And those who want to import will go to accredited exporters who are licensed, well known, and credible and would place the order. That is how it should be. So let’s get the agricultural sector organized if we must forge ahead.

What is the progress of the bill in the house?
The bill has scaled through the second reading and has been referred to relevant committees. I am sure the 8th assembly in the ear of change will work assiduously to see that the bill gets to the senate and Mr.
President for his assent,so that we may have a turnaround in agriculture, our hope is only in agriculture. But this bill had some challenges in 2006 and 2014. I didn’t quite appreciate what you mean by challenges. The making of laws is a rigorous process.

I know I introduced this bill in the 7th assembly; they argued it but in the wisdom of the house, didn’t see the need for the institute to be because they had thought that government has no business in establishing and funding such an institute. But whatever that can bring the policy of government to grow now that it is very clear that we know that oil revenue is dwindling, we must look for an option. And the next thing is agriculture. So, the challenges from the dwindling oil revenue have exposed the need why this bill will now scale through so that we can go on as a country.

You were in 6th, 7th and now 8th assembly. What do you think is peculiar with the present assembly?
I know that in the 6th and 7th Assembly of Rt. Hon. Dimeji Bankole and Rt Hon. Tambuwal, we have parliamentary disagreements that influenced how we took off but there were stability until the end of the sessions, though with few defections from the PDP to APC in the 7th assembly. However, the 8th assembly came with its challenges with the PDP as opposition which also made the house to be robust in its parliamentary engagements. Those of us in the PDP have to tight up our belt and face the work.

You were a member of the House of Representatives who used to playing the politics of the majority but now you are in opposition. How do you feel?
I have no ill-feelings. Opposition is a good thing in democracy. It is credible. All we need to do is to play credible opposition. To be in opposition does not mean you are not part of government. Opposition has a very important role to play. We must be on the watch of the ruling APC to save Nigeria. I am happy to be doing an opposition job. It is not a bad job except we have ill-feelings. Opposition will even help the ruling party to achieve and also save Nigeria