AFAN president hails Tinubu's recovery orders on CBN Anchor Borrower loan

The National President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Architect Kabir Ibrahim has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently matching order to recover 1.9 trillions naira given as agricultural loan under the Anchor Borrower Program ( ABP) of Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN).

In a statement made available to Food Farm News, Architect Ibrahim described the ABP mis-management as being responsible for the food insecurity the country is facing, adding that President Tinubu matching order to the recovery of the huge amount is very timely.

The title of the statement stated that " the mismanaged CBN Anchor Borrower Program responsible for unusual food inflation: the recall of all unpaid monies is an elixir for the attainment of food security in Nigeria"

The statement reads further  that " There is a crushing food inflation defying all efforts largely due to the mismanagement of the seemingly laudable CBN ABP begun in 2015 as a result of the APP(Agriculture Promotion Policy) covering the period 2015-2019.The CBN launched the program in Kebbi State for Rice and Wheat with an initial sum of 2.6 billion. The program started on a good note but lost its focus by dealing with a few commodities without due diligence .The program should have been institutionalized at the FMARD, and AFAN engaged in ascertaining the real farmers that will ensure sustainability and some modicum of probity. The amount expended in the scheme is too large for agricultural production, and rather than bringing about food security, it has brought uncommon food inflation " 

"It is quite instructive that the Tinubu administration has asked the CBN to recover all outstanding loans from the CBN Anchor Borrower participants within a few weeks and it clearly vindicates us considering that we have been advising the CBN  to do due diligence in giving the loans by routing it through AFAN and institutionalizing it in the defunct FMARD now renamed FMAFS. The loan is supposed to revolve in order to reach more farmers but it was unfortunately given to non farmers and opportunists in most cases.The best thing to do now is to use the BOA to do Agricultural lending by selling equity to the farmers through AFAN thereby ensuring that only practicing farmers get it. AFAN will establish a robust data base of farmers and their various farms and commodities to enable seamless verification before giving out the loans. This will ensure repayment as only genuine farmers will access the loans which they will definitely pay back to enable the funds to revolve seamlessly thereby engendering greater farmer-coverage. We hope that a great lesson must have been learnt, and the needful will be done going forward. All those who misappropriated this colossal fund must be held accountable for this is the only way to sanitize the flow of credit to bring about food security in Nigeria. We applaud the Tinubu administration for this proactive decision against those set to hoodwink it to continue with the FRAUD called Anchor Borrower Program. We also praise the administration for its effort to bring down the price of fertilizers generally.We implore him to look at the seed sector as well as mechanization for short and medium term results"