Vice-President Kashim Shettima has given an insight into the reasons for the declaration of the ‘State of Emergency on Agriculture’ by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Shettima spoke at a session on, ‘Country Perspectives: Government-led Strategies and Regional Framework,’ at the ongoing UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The session brought together African leaders and policymakers to share experiences and strategies on strengthening national and local food systems.
Discussions focused on advancing food sovereignty through inclusive policies that promote self-sufficiency, sustainable agriculture and equitable access to nutritious food.
He stated that any nation that was not independent in the area of food sovereignty, remained not a sovereign country.
According to him, when President Tinubu assumed the mantle of leadership, he met the nation in a very deplorable state.
Shettima said: “We met the nation in a very deplorable state. And His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu declared a state of food emergency out of genuine concern for the welfare of our people.
“This is especially in conflict-driven environments like the North-East where Boko Haram is sowing seeds of discord and destruction.
“So, the government came out with some very bold policy guidelines informed by the need to strengthen our food system.
“These include the setting up of the Presidential Food System Coordinating Units.
“The units are not meant to displace the existing bodies but to coordinate the activities for enhanced food delivery. And issues like the Food Support mechanism in the North East and the North.”
Shettima applauded the World Food Programme and other multilateral agencies for their support to Nigeria.
He stated that in displaced people’s camps, Tinubu’s administration took the initiative to encourage the displaced people to produce their food.
This, according to him, was with a view to giving them resilience, dignity and most importantly, resilience against shocks.
“In the Sahellian region, there is an existing relationship between the economy and the ecology and the government has to come up with very robust policies to ensure that our people do not fall into despair.
“Hunger knows no bounds, hunger doesn’t discriminate.
“We are determined to put in place structures, enhance our strategic grains reserves, and most importantly, empower small holder farmers, women and youths, by giving them incentives.
“Our belief is that our agriculture should be market-driven, not about handouts. And the whole mantra is about increased yield because entrepreneurial capitalism is embedded in the psyche of the average Nigerian,” he stated.
He added that the whole mantra was about increase in yield, embracing modern agricultural practices, mechanisation, improving seeds and better agricultural practices.
“This is why we are reinforcing our extension services so that our farmers can get up to date data on rainfall patterns to know how to manage the climate shock that is ravaging our parts of the world,” Shettima added.
Earlier, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, lamented that over 37 million children under five who faced acute malnutrition this year were almost the entire population of Canada.
Mohammed said: “But, we must muster the courage to match with a long term solution that can result in a resilient food system.
“Short term interventions dominate with little connection to the long term development planning, which are not the solutions we are seeking.
“So, we must choose transformation over dependency. We have good examples of nations that are embedding resilience into national strategies.
“Leaders are refusing to accept hunger as an inevitable, instead they combined global, digital and traditional knowledge to accelerate actions towards inclusive and resilient food systems.”
She said the leadership cannot succeed alone. “That must be built on a solid foundation that is rooted in adequate finance, genuine partnership and inclusion.
“We need coordination as a people and not bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are important. We need a strong public sector and public institutions but we need to coordinate impacts to peoples lives. “
Other dignitaries who spoke included the Executive Director, World Food Programme, Cindy Mccain; Salah Jama, Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia and Moubarack Rounbo, Ministry of Agricultural production and Industrialisation, Chad, among others.
