By Alabi Williams / 30 Jun 2025
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has commissioned 2,000 agricultural tractors to kick-start the administration’s Renewed Hope Agricultural Mechanisation Programme.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
The event took place at the National Agricultural Seeds Council, Sheda, along the Abuja-Lokoja Expressway, with a bit of fanfare. On the occasion, the President promised to make Nigeria a global agricultural power-house, one that will supply international markets, after making sure that every citizen can access affordable, nutritious food.
The President’s campaign document, The Renewed Hope Agenda, is a compendium of grandiose vision. For agriculture, apart from the 2,000 tractors, Tinubu promised to declare a state of emergency on food security, to increase food production and reduce reliance on food imports. He pledged increased budgetary allocation of N200 billion to cultivate major staple crops – rice, wheat and cassava; and to establish a N100 billion National Agricultural Development Fund.
He assured there would be a collaboration with Belarus and Brazil to access modern technology and expertise, including a $1 billion Green Imperative Programme with Brazil. Thousands of hectares of rice, maize, wheat and cassava are to be cultivated, to boost food production and create employment opportunities.
Campaign promises in Nigeria are not promissory notes. Politicians say a lot of things they clearly don’t mean. But that is not supposed to be. The democratic system is designed to be a social contract between citizens and those they entrust with votes. For there to be accountability, citizens must be awake to ensure that the contract is not abandoned; and whether it deserves to be renewed at the next critical juncture. That’s the essence of this intervention.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
After the subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) was removed on May 29, 2023, without observing due process and putting in place ways and means to mitigate the backlash, there was a noticeable increase in prices of goods and services. Food inflation began to attain a troubling rate and citizens lamented the hardship and pangs of hunger.
On August 1, 2023, President Tinubu addressed the nation to assure that he is aware of the trouble he had caused and would do something about it. On that occasion he said: “Things seem anxious and uncertain. I understand the hardship you face. I wish there were other ways. But there is not. If there were, I would have taken that route as I came here not to hurt the people and the nation that I love.”
To demonstrate his love for Nigerians, the President rolled out palliative measures he said would reduce the burden of the economic policies on the people, in the short term. The food security component includes making available affordable staple food. To achieve that, the President said he had ordered release of 200,000 metric tonnes of grains from strategic reserves to households across the 36 states and FCT to moderate prices. He said government was providing 255,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser, seedlings and other inputs to farmers who are committed to his food security agenda.
Tinubu promised to support cultivation of 500,000 hectares of farmland and all-year-round farming, of which N200 billion out of the N500 billion approved by the National Assembly was to be invested – N50 billion each to cultivate 150,000 hectares of rice and maize; N50 billion each to cultivate 100, 000 hectares of wheat and cassava.
At the time Tinubu announced those plans in August 2023, food inflation rate was 29.34 per cent on a year-on-year basis, representing 6.22 per cent increase from August 2022; and month-on-month increase of 3.87 per cent, a 0.41 per cent increase from July 2023.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
Nigerians were excited and certain that there would be improvement by December 2023, when the volley of activities and expenditures would have impacted the market. All things being equal, it shouldn’t take more than three, four months for the hectares of maize, rice and wheat to be harvested. Moreover, money was not the problem, as the president assured in that August 2023 address that government had saved trillions of naira from the petrol tax it imposed on Nigerians. At that time, retail price of petrol was a little above N600 per litre, without subsidy.
By December 2023, however, food insecurity had worsened. Food inflation hit 33.93 per cent, up from 29.34 in August 2023, when President Tinubu rolled out measures to cushion adverse effects of his policies on the people. The situation did not abate throughout the first half of 2024, despite the much-advertised distribution of assorted foodstuff as palliatives.
BudgIT’s platform, GovSpend, a civic-tech organisation advocating for transparency and accountability, reported that N9.74 billion was spent by the Federal Government on procurement and distribution of food items across the country in 2024.
As the Federal Government announced huge sums it allocated to revamp agriculture, state governments were not left behind. Some have gone to China and other countries to import equipment to boost farming. Yet, a tuber of locally grown yam is as costly as other imported consumables. Rice became unaffordable to many families; the numbers have refusedto add up.
Despite the extra-cash earned from subsidy and extra budgetary provisions to support the renewed hope’s agriculture agenda, states had to contend with sporadic food riots. That culminated in the #Endhunger protests in August 2024, which was bloody.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
In response to the unrelenting economic misery one year after, the Federal Government approved duty-free importation of food items like maize, husked-brown rice, beans wheat and cowpeas, to be implemented in 180 days. By December 2024, prices of staple food items were still out of reachfor average citizens. Food inflation rate in December 2024 was 39.84 per cent. The waivers had taken a while to pass through Customs bureaucracy.
Government also announced it will import 250,000 metric tonnes of wheat and 250,000 metric tonnes of maize, in their semi-processed form to be given to small-scale processors and millers.
The situation today is that prices have moderated as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in May 2025. Thanks to the combination of import duty waivers, the onset of the harvest season and adjustments by consumers to prevailing economic situation. Many have adjusted their taste and how much they spend on feeding. The moderation does not represent total victory from hunger for the average citizen. But there is improvement, although rice is still a problem, selling for around N70,000 per bag, depending on the location.
Now that the tractors from Belarus are here, what should Nigerians expect? How soon can Nigeria evolve into the global agriculture powerhouse Mr President boasted of? Citizens have to keep track of these promises so that they do not vanish with the onset of another round of election.
Many of the promises have gone with the wind. We did not see commissioning of hectares of wheat and maize farms, just promises. So, where are the allocations?
The Federal Government has no land to farm. It is to formulate policies, but this government loves to dabble in downstream matters that should be for states and local governments. Unfortunately, many states are doing agriculture on paper. Some are interested in the procurement aspect that will take them to China to import tractors. They have no mills to process products from farming communities. They have no irrigation systems to support all-year-round farming.
Their farming communities are ravaged by perennial floods. Let the Federal Government set a template to ascertain verifiable agro-investment in states, not just pouring subsidy money into states. Let states publish their internally generated revenues from agriculture, which should be the evidence that the investments are working.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
Government must improve security in farming communities across the country, particularly in the North-central and North-east. Farmers and fishermen in these communities now live in IDP camps. Where is government going to deploy the tractors if the communities are not safe?
As citizens interested in Mr President’s food security programme, we are also interested in how the resources are spent. Citizens want value-for-money expenditure, not just untracked spending that don’t make sense. We’re interested in the procurement process for these tractors. How much did we pay for them? Did Nigeria get a fair deal in the hands of Alex Sigman, the Belarusian businessman and former classmate of Mr. President at the University of Chicago?
Tinubu said: “Alex was my very good neighbour and schoolmate in Chicago. Never did we dream that I would become President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Alex, a successful businessman from Belarus- working together to promote the prosperity of our two countries. I believe our university will be very proud that we are doing this here today.”
Indeed, Nigerians are very proud of the association. But in the due process of Nigeria’s procurement law, friendship must be treated with utmost discretion. If it was disclosed that Mr Sigman was a very good neighbour and schoolmate of President Tinubu, that association might disqualify his organisation from the bid process at the pre-qualification stage.
We know this government is not very meticulous with issues of due procurement process, as the Lagos-Calabar Highway contract has shown. But it is wrong, and food security should not be compromised with entanglements of filial obligations.
On tractors generally, let it be known that Nigeria once assembled them in the country, some 40 years ago. Steyr Nigeria Limited was initially a joint venture between the Nigerian government and Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG of Austria, to assemble tractors, trucks and buses.
The idea was to transfer technology and stimulate local production and be self-sufficient in that segment. But that was not to be, because in 2007, the company ceased to exist when government was not forth-coming with its counterpart obligations. The Federal Government is very good at killing dreams.
Subscribe To The Best Team In Conservative, Business, Technology, Lifestyle And Digital News Realtime! support@ddnewsonline.com
Several dreams in the automotive sector have died because the authorities had no patience to grow them. They prefer procurement and importation of fanciful and costly luxury goods.
Belarus is one tiny country of less than 10 million population. It is a far smaller economy compared to Nigeria. If the interest in Belarus is codedly for the procurement component of the deal, that’s sad. If it is technology, then Nigeria can do better.
Note: This article was first published by The Guardian Newspaper.
Opinions expressed by Columnists/Contributors is theirs and do NOT necessarily reflect the views of DDNewsonline.com
More posts like this would make the online play more useful.
I am in point of fact thrilled to coup d’oeil at this blog posts which consists of tons of worthwhile facts, thanks for providing such data.