Editorial: Can we take stock of Agric expenditure?

No doubt by all global standard, our expenditure may have seemed far below 10 percent of our annual total budget  to Agriculture as being stipulated in Mabuto/Malabo declaration by African Head of States in 2014.

There is need to stock take the impact of how much we have at least expended in the last ten years on agricultural development especially with an improvement of fund allocation to the sector in the last ten years that had been adjudged as being appreciated from 0.1 to 2 or 2.5 % with trillions of naira being spent on anchor program alone through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) apart from other sources of funding from the International partners like African Development Bank (AfDB).

The recent declaration by President Bola Ahmed  Tinubu of a state of emergency on food security matters would have been more germane with a caveat that requires the auditing of the sector in order to ascertain the real picture of the strength and weakness of the growth for a better repositioning.

 It may not be too right to assume that the sector has performed above or below expectation without a proper auditing of how funding in the past have been ultilized. We expect the state of food emergency to include the aspect of stock taking in order to be able to reflect where exactly we are getting it wrong or right.

It is important at this junction to strike our consciousness to the fact that Agriculture is on concurrent list of the Federal, States and local Governments budgets, and which has made it more necessary why the auditing or the stock taking must be conducted now that all issues relating to food and waters are under the purview of Federal Executives Council (FEC)  in which all the state governors are all members regardless of party affiliation.

The stock taking will be able to ascertain the gravity of attention the sector actually requires rather than just grandstanding on mere assumptions where trillions of Naira had been spent without results coupled with huge wastages without anybody being held responsible. As a matter of fact, our dreams for food security will be dashed as long as the periodic check on stock taking is not taken very seriously.

We might need to give a quick run down of fund being released into the sector through CBN according to its former Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele as a total of N1.09 trillion under anchor borrow program since inception in 2015.

It is very worrisome to hear that Nigeria is still food shortaged upon these huge spending without proper stock taking even as there are gaps in the loan recovery.

It may not be out of place to include in the state of emergency declaration on food security the proper auditing and stock taking into the sector's restoration and future template for sustainable food sufficiency.