President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday in Abuja lauded the Bank of Industry (BoI) for creating over nine million jobs in the last seven years and disbursing over N1.24 trillion to 4.2 million beneficiaries in micro, small, medium and large enterprises.
The President spoke at the commissioning of the Second Tower of the BoI building. He said the bank has continued to successfully execute its mandate of extending single-digit interest rate loans to manufacturers.
The Bank of Industry was established with a purpose, a unique purpose that was targeted towards promoting the industrial sector of Nigeria’s economy. The bank was actually set up with a view to ensuring that industrial production is encouraged.
This goal was intended to be achieved by upping the ante in the manufacturing and processing activities of businesses within the country with the assistance of the Bank of Industry.
The other aim of setting up the Bank of Industry is to make financial provisions for the industrial sector of the economy, including business support services.
Essentially, the Bank of Industry is a commercial and/or development bank, established to assist businesses that are into manufacturing and processing financially. Since its mandate is targeted toward the industrial sector of the economy, the Nigeria Bank of Industry is saddled with the responsibility of financing equipment used in value chain production.
But there’s more to be done, particularly to help the small and medium-sized businesses that are still taking the brunt of the COVID-19 economic impacts.
After all, even at the best of times, many small businesses struggle.
Even the most resourceful business owners struggle to get ahead when the environment stifles their efforts.
Small businesses should, therefore, be given an advantage in business practices. Business policies and processes must be clear, protective and accessible to small businesses.
One of the biggest decisions many small business owners face is whether to borrow money to keep their business going or cut their losses. That’s something for which they should get sound professional advice from the bank. The bank should provide free advice to encourage small businesses.
Of course, it is heart-warming to note, as Buhari does, that the bank has recently raised 750 million Euros from international investors and the money will be disbursed to large, medium and small enterprises and women entrepreneurs with bankable projects.
In fact, the need to ensure that small business owners can get loans, and good, free professional advice cannot be overstated.
In the same vein, the need for governments and especially the bank to encourage consumers to “buy local” products should be made part of the nation’s development strategies to encourage local businesses.
Though “Buy Nigerian” campaigns have been around since, it, now, must be made louder and clearer that “It’s never been more important to buy Nigerian than right now.”
Nigeria as a fertiliser powerhouse in Africa
President Muhammadu Buhari, this week, in Abuja, attributed Nigeria’s rising prominence as Africa’s fertiliser powerhouse to the implementation of the right policies by his administration.
“With our over 70 blending plants operating, Nigeria is on its way to becoming Africa’s fertiliser powerhouse,” he said, adding: “And with our mega Urea production facilities, Nigeria is definitely a global player in the Urea space.”
The President made his observations about Nigeria’s growing importance in the field of fertiliser production during an audience with the Executive Committee of the Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers Association of Nigeria (FEPSAN).
He said that when his administration came to office in 2015, it quickly identified the persistent shortage of fertiliser as a key reason for the low yields experienced on our farms.
He said that the historical scarcity of fertiliser was due to our over-reliance on imports and the inefficient participation of the government in distributing this essential commodity to the farmers.
“As a government, it was very clear to us that these practices needed to change, Nigeria is naturally blessed with most of the raw materials needed to produce fertilisers,” he said.
“Nigeria has all the skills and manpower required to convert these raw materials to fertilisers. With the right enabling environment, Nigeria has entrepreneurs who are ready to invest in the sector. “So we went to work. And, as the Chairman of FEPSAN mentioned in his remarks, the rest is now history.”
However, it must be stated that increasing agricultural productivity in Nigeria, which is the main reason for engaging in such a huge effort to produce fertilisers, requires greater adoption of good agricultural practices including efficient use of Fertilisers which should be made readily accessible to farmers.
For now, while all farmers can profit from fertiliser use, only those with adequate finance may strive to maximise net returns per hectare resulting from fertiliser use.
Most of Nigeria’s farmers use traditional low input, low output farming methods that have been in use for generations. Even when knowledgeable of improved good agricultural practices, many have not been able to apply their knowledge appropriately due to poor access to agricultural inputs such as improved varieties and fertiliser.
Investment in fertiliser use has an opportunity cost vis-à-vis other uses of financial resources for meeting immediate needs. Deliberate efforts must, therefore, be made in ensuring that fertiliser investments give high returns with little risk.
This necessitates the employment of ingenious techniques for optimising fertiliser use. Fertilizer use optimisation refers to maximising profit from fertiliser use, including profit per hectare for farmers with adequate finance and profit on the small investment in fertiliser use by the financially constrained farmers.
Though the President said that the remarkable achievement made in fertiliser production was recorded in a very short period of time with a steady flow of investments to the agriculture sector from the private sector that brings prosperity to millions of Nigerians and good returns to the investors, still, much remains to be achieved.
In order to make Nigeria’s agriculture productivity more sufficient, the government and private sector need to develop ways to enhance products competitiveness in the international market and improve the efficiency of domestic rice production.
Livestock development is also an important aspect of Nigeria’s agriculture. The domestic production of livestock products is far below the national demand, which causes large imports of livestock and livestock products.
The livestock sector, if properly harnessed, can create new opportunities for farmers and provide more affordable and healthier diets for future generations.
Through farming and livestock development, Nigeria has a stronghold on its agriculture productivity. With the help of the government, livestock and farming productivity can, hopefully, improve enormously.
Agriculture in Nigeria is so important to the economy and people’s daily lives that, despite its setbacks, it will inevitably prosper and the Buhari-led administration must do everything possible to be part of the successful history of the sector.
Of course, it is worthy to mention that under the Buhari-led administration’s successful fertiliser policies, the country did not witness shortages of fertilizers during the global COVID lockdowns.
And, gladly, as the President has said, Nigeria will not witness any shortages of fertiliser because of the Eastern European conflicts that have impacted the global fertiliser trade.
That is no mean achievement for the administration, especially if the pitiable state of agriculture in Nigeria is considered. Although Nigeria exported food worth ₦803 bn between 2016 and 2019, it has imported food worth N3.35 trillion within the same period.
Since 1970, Nigeria’s agriculture industry has faced the same set of challenges that have turned the country from an agricultural-export powerhouse to a massive agricultural importer.
Some of these challenges include limited access to fertiliser, land, inadequate storage facilities, limited access to credit facilities, slow adoption of modern technologies, difficulty in accessing markets, and heavy reliance on rain-fed watering.
These are some of the challenges facing agriculture in Nigeria which the Buhari-led administration is fighting very hard to change narratives.
