With the fall in oil prices and the need to focus on agriculture to rescue the country from recession, Nigeria’s research institutes must lead the Covid-19 fight JOHN OBA, Abuja.
No doubt, Nigeria economic is in the red with the fallen price of oil because of the currently effect of Corona Virus pandemic. This leaves the government no other option than to focus on agriculture. Yet with Nigeria agriculture sector still at its infant stage, the place of research comes prominently as agriculture is an evolving sector which dwells on research to increase its productivity for the growth of the sector and also make the sector attractive to youths.
Research Institutes
Though Research Institutes in Nigeria have been abandoned with no adequate funding and staff of these of these institutes left to sponsored themselves for further studies, yet these institutes have several researches beneficial to the country, especially the agricultural sector, but regrettably, those researches ended up in the shelves of the Research Institutes.
The Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) is the coordinating body of all the Agriculture Research Institutes in the country, but this has not been given the need supports to function maximally, as the problem of funds and competent leadership has been its ban.
Over the years, the ARCN had become dormant and have been unable to coordinate the Research Institutes effectively, and contributed little or none to the growth of agriculture in Nigeria. Also there is the problem of off-takers of researches from these institutes as most Nigeria organisations especially the private sector will prefer to patronise foreign researches rather than the ones by the local institutes.
Minister’s concern
But the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mallam Sabo Nanono, has been very concerned about the state of the country’s research institutes, especially those that focus on agricultural research. He has on several occasions harped on the need for effective Research Institutes, saying: “one of the fundamental problem facing the country is probably in the hidden activities of the research institutions and I know that most of the Research Institutes are underfunded as they have big buildings but lack funds for research”.
“Giving instance of a professor paid N5 00,000 monthly but is not given up to N200,000 for research yearly, and that is basically the truth. If we don’t move forward in that direction how do we progress? We as a government must examine what can be done”.
“We must rationalize Research Institutes and make it more cost effective and more productive if we are going to achieve our goal”.
In another occasion, the Minister said “we need to rationalize Research Institutes and make them more cost effective and more productive if we want to achieve what we want to achieve. I am a farmer; I know what it means to have good and bad seeds.”
Appointment of Sharubutu
Subsequently, in September 2019, the Minister appointed a Professor of Veterinary Medicine, Garba Hamidu Sharubutu as the Acting Executive Secretary of the ARCN, with the mandate to revitalize agricultural research in Nigeria.
Professor Sharubutu was deployed to the Council as Director, Knowledge Management in company of two other Professors appointed by the Ministry, in order to boost the staffing structure of the Agriculture Research Council of Nigeria, before the Minister appointed him as the Acting Executive Secretary of the Council.
Fate of Research Institutes
Speaking about his appointment, Sharubutu said: “the various Research Institutes were like children without father and mother before my appointment because the principal function of ARCN was actually to advise government on policy issues that bothered on agriculture and draw up master plan for running the Research System”.
However, the Council was almost moribund due to the defunct Management in place.
According to him, when he was appointed, he looked at the facilities that are available and realized that the Council does not have a library, no Conditions and Schemes of Service as stipulated in the Act establishing the Council.
This is regrettable because the ARCN should be in comparison with Research Institutes in Kenya, Ethiopia and Mali. It was also learnt that audit reports from 2012 until 2019 was not available in the Council.
“Of course most of them were satisfied with that because it made the system vulnerable to manipulations, lack of transparency, provided the platform for mediocrity”, Professor Sharubutu said.
The mandate
“So the Minister appointed me and gave me the mandate to resuscitate the Council. He said I must make sure I solve the leadership crisis in the various Research Institutes. Secondly, I must transform the ARCN because to him agriculture cannot move without research and extension.
“On assumption of duty, I discovered amongst others crowded work place (about seven (7) Agricultural Officers lumped together in an office); Lack of capacity in Council’s staff (with Diploma, NCE, HND, Third Class First Degrees and a few with Masters and Ph.D Degrees). In order to address the issue of staffing structure we decided that we must build capacity of our staff”, he noted.
He said the Council insisted that staff must go to school because there was no way they can become a research officer and keep on moving around with NCE, Diploma or First Degree (Third Class).
Furthermore, he said that the second mandate in the Act says that they must design a structure and a plan for the Agricultural Research Institutes and provide fund for them.
“Now how do you design a plan for Agricultural Research Institutes when the Research Institutes have serious capacity problem, and you here are supposed to dictate what they are supposed to do, but you don’t have the capacity, definitely that is not going to be possible”, he wondered.
In other world class Research Institutes like EMBRAPA-Brazil, ICAR-India, majority of our lawmakers have visited there with the aim of making the ARCN better, unfortunately, the Council hitherto could not produce the required capacity of leadership to realize this dream.
In 2019, the Senate drove away the ARCN when they went for budget defense, because the ARCN was said to be operating a defunct management without required capacity of Leadership.
“So, with my coming, we restructured the place and tried to see how we can boost capacity. We initiated a programme where we are to have a museum just like it happens in EMBRAPA and others, so that all the 26 Institutions that are under the Council would have their profiles mounted in our office complex”, Professor Sharubutu said.
The reason for this is that the first point of call for anybody who want to conduct research in this country is supposed to be ARCN, so the Council can look at their research interest and direct them to the appropriate Research Institute that is going to be of benefit them.
“We have built an extended arm to the office complex in the Council from the meager resources allocated to us in 2019 Budget. The building was designed to accommodate twenty one (21) office for staff; a National Museum; a National Radio to reach out to farmers on research innovations and technologies nationwide.
“Hitherto, going on Monitoring and Evaluation by staff was more of jamboree without any outcome report to show for it and a platform to siphoning funds, but we have developed a template like in the National University Commission (NUC) for more realistic monitoring and desired output”, he said.
Professor Hamidu Sharubutu said “for now, he (Minister) has given one serious directive that all our research findings must be moved from the shelves, that he wants to see them on ground, and we have successfully submitted a proposal to him on each of the research institutes, we have been able to look at their potentials, what seed they have generated, how much they have in stock, what tractors they have, what are their capacities, and we have submitted that to the Minister.
