The Governor of Jigawa State, Umar Namadi, has ordered the arrest of a local chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) for allegedly diverting agricultural inputs provided by the federal government.
This move came during an unscheduled visit to the inputs distribution centres of the federal government’s National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket Programme.
During his visit, Governor Namadi discovered that officials were engaged in racketeering at centres in Birnin Kudu and Kiyawa local government areas. Farmers were denied allocation, and some targeted beneficiaries were stranded in the inputs distribution centres.
The beneficiaries protested to the governor that the inputs had been sold to traders. In Kiyawa Local Government Area, the governor ordered the arrest of the AFAN chairman for allegedly inflating the price of the inputs.
“We have a serious issue,” Governor Namadi said.
He added, “We started this exercise for the last five days. Already one-third of the period has gone and agro-dealers have not shown up. That means it will be difficult for the farmers to get this input to go to the farm, and that means sabotaging the whole exercise.”
The governor vowed to take stringent measures to check round-tripping by agro-dealers and their agents.
He lamented that farmers were being swindled due to irregularities in the distribution process. In several centres, Governor Namadi found agro dealers selling subsidised inputs intended for farmers to marketers while denying the intended recipients their rightful allocations.
“It is a sabotage of the effort of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and at the same time a sabotage of the effort of the President,” Governor Namadi said. “And we will not allow that to happen. So we will do our best, and whoever collects more than is expected must refund this money back to the owners.”
The governor also noted that while farmers were required to pay ₦159,187 for their inputs, with a 50 per cent subsidy paid by the federal government, some “unscrupulous individuals” imposed additional charges of ₦5,000 to ₦10,000. He urged the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to urgently address the situation by replacing corrupt agro-dealers.
The racketeering activities, Governor Namadi warned, could jeopardise his state’s wheat farming goals and the federal scheme nationwide.
He visited input distribution centres in Birnin Kudu, Kiyawa, Jahun, Miga, and Kafin-Hausa local government areas to assess the situation firsthand.
