By Our Correspondent
#TrackNigeria – Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari remains the biggest advocate of the success of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme,ABP, introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN after the 2015 election.Prior to the recent Presidential elections, Buhari latched on to thesuccess in the agricultural sector ,in other words, the ABP at every campaign venue, to highlight his government’s economic achievement.
Those with the president throughout his whistle-stop campaigns across the northern part of the country –even the south too, were witnesses to how the president reminded farmers that the rains have been good in the last couple of months.He added that his government’s interventions,of course through Anchor Borrowers’ Programme made harvest plenty and rice production has attained a historic high. Consequently, the president often said, the people’s economic welfare has thus been enhance.
Newsdiaryonline was part of the Presidential campaign stops in Sokoto and Nasarawa states where Buhari among others celebrated his successful agricultural intervention as the means to enhancing the people’s welfare.And most people seemed to have agreed with him.That is what the presidential election results seem to imply
If one had any doubt about Buhari’s claims, a dramatic scene shortly before prayers at one of the Mosques in Abuja’s Wuse Zone 6 recently buttressed the relevance of Anchor Borrowers’ Programme as an issue in the recent Presidential election.As some of the Muslim faithful cheerfully disagreed over whether Buhari or Atiku should have won,one of Buhari’s supporters said : “For us we had no problem voting Buhari. The other people kept telling us that there was hunger in the land. We, the farmers in the villages did not see it that way.Because of the interventions and loans given to farmers,many of them were able to cultivate, harvest and make more money like they never had.The could even save some money from their farm produce. So the campaign around hunger did not make sense to some of us.”
But what exactly are the facts about the special intervention by the CBN that has endeared Buhari to the millions of ordinary Nigerian farmers? President Muhammadu Buhari launched Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) November 17, 2015 in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State after the CBN introduced it.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, having said that more than 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have embrace the inauguration of ABP in 2015.He also said more than N55 billion has been disbursed more 250,000 farmers
According to Emefiele, the programme has been operated under the aegis of the Presidential Task Force on Rice, and Wheat Production. It is being done in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.There is no doubt that The Anchor Borrower Scheme is one of the impactful programmes of the Central Bank of Nigeria that has earned the Buhari administration a lot of support among the masses.
Also one clear area of impact is the massive reduction of rice importation into Nigeria.This point has been buttressed by a statement by CBN Spokesman,Isaac Okorafor who affirmed according to NAN that rice import has declined in 2018
He said “Figures obtained from India and Thailand, which are dominant rice exporters to Nigeria indicate that as at September 2018, Thailand exported about 5,161 tonnes of rice to Nigeria, while India exported only a paltry 426 tonnes to Nigeria as at July 2018.
“CBN had not allocated any foreign exchange for the importation of rice and we, therefore, attribute the achievement to the concerted efforts of FMARD and Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN),’’ Okorafor said.
Okoroafor, also reportedly revealed
very startling figures about the ABP in 2018.He said 155,732 farmers were beneficiaries of
the N36.37 billion disbursed to them. 27
farmers were paid N12.57 billion paid in the first half of 2017 .Thus making N91.90
billion being the amount disbursed since the programme was started .
He added that “More than 412,037 smallholder farmers are beneficiaries in 36 states and the FCT; there are 13 state government anchors and 127 private-led anchors’’
There is more to cheer.More than 500
jobs have been created by the programme
.Even more encouraging was the report of
about N12.19 billion loan repayment since
its inception.This implies that the beneficiaries have not just seen the
programme as part of the national cake.Rather, some efforts are being made to
repay loans.
Many are encouraged that local food
production has continued to boost the economy.The worry now is whether the programme will be
allowed to continue.There are concerns in some quarters that emphasis is being
placed on the office of the apex bank boss rather that deepening the stride of
impactful schemes such as the Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme.
“That man(Emefiele) needs encouragement to run his tenure to the
end.Whether or not his tenure will be extended should left for God and the President to decide.But
he has done a good job helping to stimulate the agricultural sector.Don’t
forget that some foreign countries are not happy with his patriotic measures
that are denying them access to Nigeria’s rice market space.” a security expert
said.
Whichever way the scheme goes, there is no doubt that President Buhari has been Emefiele’s staunchest supporter.That is why he has survived this long, anyway . Whether he is retained or not, the impact of the Anchors Borrowers Scheme cannot be wished away.
