Agriculture and the Chief Servant’s madness II

At issue is the state owned Baddegi Rice Mill near Bida, a factory with the capacity to generate 5000 immediate jobs and the potential to create thousands more.  Everything in the mill is ready: machines installed, local and expatriate partners recruited, farmers to feed the mill have also been identified and the scope of the […]

At issue is the state owned Baddegi Rice Mill near Bida, a factory with the capacity to generate 5000 immediate jobs and the potential to create thousands more.  Everything in the mill is ready: machines installed, local and expatriate partners recruited, farmers to feed the mill have also been identified and the scope of the next phase of expansion established.  Except that they need one board meeting to give them the legal teeth to start operation, but the Chief Servant’s government would not call for the meeting.
Here are the facts of the case.
Between 2009 and 2010 the state government entered into an arrangement with Deanshanger, of which Umar Muttalab is the chairman, to operate the mill.  As of this moment, the company has spent approximately 750 million naira on equipment and installations.  The mill has been ready for operation since 2011, I was told.  The company has already organized an out-grower scheme of farmers to feed the mill. About 4000 (120 cooperatives of) farmers would benefit, it also plans to employ 120 workers directly and 900 indirectly.  It convinced the First Bank to open a branch in the village to service the mill and the farmers.  Deanshanger has also identified a piece of land near the old mill to open two additional ones.  Accordingly, in July 2009, it took N1.2 billion loan from the Bank of Industry (BOI) to execute the projects; Niger state government however, does not permit the old one to operate let alone grant the title deeds for expansion.
Let’s assume the two additional mills would each equal the capacity of the old one.  And we know that the old one purposes to provide 5000 jobs; the three mills together would generate 15,000 jobs.  Now what would prevent any state government to facilitate the speedy operation of such projects?
Is it money?  In the arrangement, the state government is not expected to spend one kobo.  Is it a scope issue, i.e. would the mill benefit only a small section of the state?  No.  The mill would keep farmers in seven local governments busy.  
What is it then?  That question leaves many people scratching their heads.  I met an old acquaintance of the governor, who like the governor, is a PhD.  “Puzzling as it is,” Dr. Wali said, “I’ll not cast any judgment on this matter.  There must be something hidden that prevents the state government from proceeding – of which we don’t know.”
“Sir,” I said, “from the details I’ve given you so far and by the near estimate of your experience in government, could you say what that hidden reason might be?”  No, he couldn’t.
Some hypothesize that it’s because the project is sited in Nupeland and the governor, they say, does not like the Nupe people.  That speculation, for many reasons, wouldn’t hold water.  First, one of the leading lights of Nupe Foundation (who’s been in the trenches fighting to develop the state for purely altruistic reasons) said “when Nupe elders wrote a letter to the government to intervene, the letter passed through several desks and more than five of them are helmed by Nupe functionaries.”
Two, if you don’t want a project sited on a certain soil, why don’t you move it elsewhere in the state – if economic parameters would allow?  At least the 15,000 beneficiaries would still be Nigerlites – our brothers and sisters.
In any case, if that hypothesis holds, the EtsuNupe and Emir of Bida (the traditional leader of the Nupes wherever they maybe) did intervene.
On March 5 2014, Etsu together with the chairman of Deanshanger, a representative of the government and members of Nupe Foundation, visited the Badeggi Rice Mill.  The Etsu, appealed to both parties to fulfill their commitments.
It’s not surprising however, that the governor has not listened to Etsu; because the governor believes the traditional rulers (obviously that broad generalization includes the Etsu) are corrupt.
In December 2008, during a conference on poverty eradication in Northern states, Governor Babangida Aliyu, the Chief Servant, said the traditional rulers in the North were “corrupt, support corruption and have lost the respect and moral authority to correct their subjects.”
You see, the governor believes that the Etsu has no “moral authority” to intervene.  This assertion is not entirely without its merits.  The traditional leaders are supposed to help set things to mend, but their activities have been seasoned with greed.  So on what compulsion must the political leaders, of whom the same governor said (while addressing members of Nigerian Authors in October 2009) “90% are criminals”?
So if virtually all the traditional rulers in the North are corrupt and 90 percent of Nigerian political leaders are criminals, none of them has the moral core to call each other to other.  They can only unite on corruption and criminal activities.
Also, Nupe Foundation of which Justice LegboKutigi, a former chief justice of Nigeria, is the chairman of its Council of Elders, wrote a letter to the Chief Servant on October 20 2014, seeking his “kind intervention to resolve the Badeggi Rice Mill impasse [by] convening [a] board meeting by the chairman” of the mill who’s the commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs; on account of the LGAs being the majority shareholders in the mill.
They also asked the governor to help resolve the “long standing technical, legal and logistical issues that cropped up since 2010, after the current lease holders – Deanshanger Project Ltd, took over the company under lease agreement with the State Government.”
Even the intervention of the elders didn’t help.  To pay them the courtesy of being blunt, they don’t appear to enjoy better credibility than the traditional rulers.  They also have not done anything of note for the people they claim to represent.  It’s for occasions like this that our leaders are enjoined to be more selfless than selfish.  Even the credible ones among them are losing it – Justice LegboKutigi’s embarrassing adventure at the National Conference is a case in point.
In sum, our governor – the so-called Chief Servant – has not used our biggest asset, the agricultural potential.  In particular, his government has stymied the production of a rice mill that will provide 15,000 jobs in the immediate future.  Further, he’s refused to heed the counsel of traditional rulers and politicians to reconsider the project.  And we’re not anywhere near a valid explanation of why the Chief Servant wouldn’t facilitate the commencement of the operation of the plant.  Usually, if we can’t infer a reasonable explanation from a phenomenon, we call it madness.