‘We have cultivated over 5,000 hectares with cowpeas’

Mr. Sunday Wabba

Internally Displaced Persons are now one of the common features of the Nigerian horizon. Associated with them are hunger and deprivations in the camps. However, of recent, a quiet agrarian revolution is going on  and the arrowhead of this revolution, Mr. Sunday Wabba, founder of Smile Again African Initiative chatted with Food-Farm News on the changes  and other issues. Excerpts.

Could  you introduce yourself to Food Farm News?

My name is Sunday Wabba, CEO and Founder, Smile Again African initiative, I hail from Mussa Village, Askira/ Uba local government area of Borno state. We found ourselves in Abuja as a result of the  displacement of  persons occasioned by Boko Haram attacks on our villages. We came to Abuja in 2014, and housed by relations just as we started struggling for survival.

The news making the rounds is that since the beginning of this crisis, that is the Boko haram crisis, that has resulted to killing and displacement of rural people being placed in IDPs camps and government claiming support with foods and other materials, how do you want to agree with this support intervention by the government? 

Thank you very much, since we  came to Abuja in 2014, I won’t say government has not been trying, but because of the increasing population from the North east alone was more than 2.5 million. So the support we have been getting from the government was not adequate at sustaining us, and as result, many of us went into other menial jobs to survive. To this extent, we initiated a programme with the leaderships of these camps where we have been getting government’s little support. On our own, we have initiated a training programme where we have trained  quite a number of women, and it was tagged IDP trains IDPs.

 We have trained about 200 women on tailoring and we are craving the support of good people o f Nigeria especially our sons and daughters from the state as we are using this medium to thank Senator Ali Ndume and also the wife of Chief of Naval Staff who give us 50 sewing machines to empower our women.

Let us be more agriculture-specific because of the mandate of publication. Earlier you mentioned how you have been farming through cooperative, could you throw more light to this?

The cooperative farming in the IDPs was as far back as January-Febraury where the leadership of some of the camps came together and brainstormed towards helping ourselves through farming. Thereby not waiting alone for government food support. So we decided on seeking for farmland support of the traditional chiefs from Nazarawa state who were  willing to assist us with land for farming. 

This is what led us into cooperative farming whereby we have planted cowpea. As a matter of fact, we have over 2,000 registered cooperative members with women forming theirs within the camps, under us.But Yaxaram Cowpea Cooperative covers all the names of members and we have covered over 5,000 hectares as our harvest is targeting almost 135-200 trucks this year. Also through this programme we have introduced market where only our produce will be allowed for sale, through our women. This market will serves as hub for all the IDPs in and around Abuja metropolis where all people from the city can buy all their food stuffs and by doing this, we shall be contributing our own quota to the development of agricultural and food security development in the country.

How do you want to relate the issue of expired food being brought into the camps to your going into farming cooperative as you had earlier mentioned?

Of recent, there are expired foods flooding the camps which we observed as not being healthy and godly for the wellbeing of our people. Just recently, they brought  200 cartons of biscuit to one of the camps in October that will be expiring by the next month which is November. We take this as act of wickedness and decided to take our destiny in our own hands. Where were they three months ago when the starvation was intense in the camps? Now that we have started getting the harvest of our crops, they started bringing expired food stuffs instead of buying our produce. Just last Saturday from National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), headquarters was milk and Golden Morn that will be expired in December and November respectively, brought for our children. So we are advising that whoever that want to assist us must not bring any expired food as any of such matter will be reported to National Agency for Food and Druds Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for immediate prosecution.

How do you want the issue of expired food resolved or what is the way forward?

You see, the largest employer of labor in any country on earth is agricultural sector, and in this regards, since we have vast land, free rain which made up all good instrument of food production,  this has motivated us into farming. So I am appealing to the relevant authorities to partner with us especially at Yaxaram Cooperative. Since we have produced large quantity of agricultural produce especially the cowpea  as  government can buy all the produce from us to feed people in the IDPs and others in the North East to augment shortfall in the region instead of bringing expired food items into the camps.

How do you get the seeds for your members’ cultivation?

You may recall that the largest producer of cowpea in the county is Borno state, I am from Bornu state, the southern part to be specific, the entire Lake chad region used to be hub of farming activities and it was dominated by the Gwoza. It is the Gwoza people that are displaced who live in Abuja. It is the seeds from our traditional method that those that have them brought for us to plant in Abuja. The chemical aspect, to be honest, we have to rally round good people especially one Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Life Builder Initiative that gave us loan and bought these chemical with loan for us. Although the quantity we are able to get did not go round our members as we got  only 200 litres from the FG and this quantity is far below what we wanted. 

We have taken officials from Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (FMARD) to our sites for them to know the size of our cooperative. They have seen and promised to make a case for us. But you know government policy always takes time before it can become effective and the delay in the supply of pesticide has caused a lot insects damaging our farms. We pray that government should always be responsive to giving inputs before planting season of any crop to farmers’ associations like ours.

What are the other challenges?

We have many others like lack of storage facility as well as training on how to practical commercial farming for those among us that have interest in large scale farming. How I wish that government is sincere by calling this people that have offered themselves among us to go into large scale farming, but alas we are still working with the traditional ways of farming and thereby not being able to get commercial harvest.Let Government take some us to the other part of the world for training in the use of modern technologies. 

One person from the IDPs can come back to train about 200 people on modern skill on farming that is train the trainers. And this will give the whole region food stability and economic empowerment, so we are appealing to FG and Minister of Agriculture, Baba Chief AuduOgbeh to look into this matter and render a help for us as our cowpea will grow beyond our storage capacity, we need storage facility or come up with a better facility or programme thereby asking NEMA to buy all our produce instead of the expire foods that they always give to the IDPs.