Do they really know it’s Christmas?

It has been exactly 30 years since British superstar, Bob Geldof, led a band of musicians under the banner of Band Aid to draw the attention of the world to the famine ravaging Ethiopia through their hit song – Do They Know It’s Christmas.

The images of kwashiorkor-inflicted children struggling to stay alive in Ethiopian cities sent shivers down the spines of many people. Many saluted the musicians’ initiative to bring awareness to the plight of the poor. And while using their talent to raise millions of dollars in aid of the situation, not a few wondered about what politicians and public officers in Ethiopia, like elsewhere in Africa, were doing to provide the most basic needs of food and shelter to their people.

The message of that touching Christmas song might be directed at the whole of Africa, particularly public officers who paid lip service to fighting the cause of the masses, it is unlikely that Geldof and his television presenter wife, Paula Yates, had Nigeria’s Agriculture Ministers in mind when they were inspired to contribute to the rescue of the famished people of Africa.

The underlying message of that musical intervention, however, should apply to Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the current Minister of Agriculture and Mallam Adamu Bello who served in that capacity between 2001 and 2007, but who now aim at each other’s jugular over the correct performance indicator of the Agric ministry during their respective tenures. Considering the vociferous manner in which both gentlemen have been tackling each other, it might be apt to ask if they both really know it’s Christmas.

But it is evident that we should care about the bone of contention that has pitched these two knowledgeable men against each other. We should care, because unlike the petroleum and telecommunications sectors whose fortunes are transient, in spite of their current huge returns, the agric sector is regarded as the ideal industry of the future upon which the government should build a lasting economic agenda.

If a country is able to feed its citizens and draw sufficient revenue from export, it would nurse no fears over dwindling crude oil price or the possibility of mobile telephony becoming significantly cheap or even free as satellite technology gradually becomes easier and accessible. This has been the basis upon which the successive administrations have run since 1999. If it then looks like the claims do not meet current reality or the nation is being misled to believing that our projections are being met when in fact they are not, then it is important to interrogate the issues.

It is precisely a call made by Mallam Bello for a probe of the claims of successes being purportedly recorded in the Agric sector that is now generating a huge controversy. It is coming against the backdrop that Dr. Adesina is one of the most celebrated ministers in President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet. In December last year when he was named Forbes Africa Person of the Year 2013 for his “reforms in Nigeria’s Agriculture sector and the empowering of more than six million farmers across Nigeria to embrace agriculture as a business,” Adesina became not just a poster boy for this administration but something akin to an ideal public officer.

Subsequently, he has hinged his message on the fact that self-sufficiency is achievable in his time, and that his ministry has succeeded in nipping in the bud decades of corruption and inefficiency stifling growth in the agric sector, particularly in the disbursement of fertilizers.

But those assertions are being called to question now and I am reluctant to accept that Adesina’s defence is convincing enough. In challenging Adesina’s claims, Bello’s raison d’etre might be political – to challenge the penchant of public officers denigrating their predecessors in order to show that their own reforms are better. But Bello’s argument is not a rant; he is deconstructing a myth and he supported his claims with statistical evidence that is verifiable.

“I have decided to put on record the authentic performance of the Agricultural sector of the Nigerian economy from the year 2000 to 2013. I say authentic in the sense that the source is the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which is statutorily responsible national economic data jointly with the Central Bank of Nigeria,” Bello says.

It turns out that the growth rate of Gross Domestic product (GDP) for Agricultural sector started picking steadily from 2000 at 2.95%; 4.25% in 2002; 6.50% in 2004 and reaching its peak in 2006 at 7.40%. Decline, however, has set in gradually from 2007 when it dropped to 7.20%; to 5.60% in 2010 and 2011; a sharp drop in 2012 to 3.97% before a slight rise to 4.50% in 2013. The target, according to Bello, in both 2012 and 2013, was 8%.

While he was able to show that the growth rate in Agriculture sector has been on the decline since Olusegun Obasanjo left office as president, the Adesina camp, in its response, could only offer a weak accusation of “cosmetic and fuddled growth statistics, an indication of some tinkering somewhere.”

In a statement by Adesina’s aide, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, Bello should not rely only on the NBS statistics. The statement even suggested that ex-Minister’s figures might be manipulated, yet it provided no significant counter-claim. This is a careless argument to make in view of the weighty allegations that his principal may not have been forthright in his claims.

It may be true that the Agric sector under Adesina has attracted about $4m in the last two years. If that claims passes scrutiny test, Bello’s logical contention is that such success pales in significance in its overall impact on the economy when compared to achievements of 2006 and 2007. And in any case, if the Ministry has failed to meet its target in the last two years, why has the Minister not explained his challenges?

It is very curious that Adesina has no defence to the allegation that he exaggerated the fraud claims in the subsidy and distribution of fertilizer. Again, Bello garnished his arguments with facts and figures as well as conviction as one who knew what he was talking about.

It is worth reiterating that good intentions are different from the reality; nor are they sufficient as pass-marks.

Will Bello’s treatise succeed in exposing the inanities of the current administration in the Agricultural sector where the claims of progress do not seem to add up to the reality on ground?

Merry Xmas.