Senator Emmanuel Onwe is the Commissioner for Information in Ebonyi State and a lead promoter of sustainable food production in Nigeria. In this interview by select journalists, he highlights activities of the state to promote Ebonyi rice and agriculture in general, declaring that Governor David Umahi will never join the All Progressives Congress (APC). Group Politics Editor, TAIWO ADISA brings excerpts:
There are insinuations and rumours about Governor Umahi flying the flag of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Is this true?
That is not true. This question has been asked like forever. It is not a new thing, but it is not true. Governor Umahi is one of the stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and he intends to remain so.
Do you have his ears on that?
Absolutely, 116 percent; he remains committed to PDP and everything the party stands for.
It was also said that the governor has become intolerant since he came into office as governor, not just of his predecessor, but also of journalists. How true is that?
That is so depressing to hear because such rumour is unfounded. On the issue of his intolerance towards his predecessor, it is this same Governor Umahi that asked the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), two weeks ago, to call a meeting between himself and his predecessor to seek an amicable understanding of the political fall-out that erupted between them because the former governor, Martin Elechi, promised to handover to him. When the time came, he reneged on that promise and this man (Umahi) chose to pursue his political ambition and was successful. Then, there was this discordant atmosphere that now exists between them. He took the initiative. The leadership of CAN did invite both of them, but the former governor remains completely indisposed towards any sort of overtures or reconciliation. That is the truth; it is the fact. What do we do about that? You can call the chairman of CAN, Ebonyi State chapter, who initiated that meeting to tell you the content of the discussion that took place.
It is very difficult to now engage in issues about individual correspondents in the state because I can say things that will embarrass some people. What are the reasons for that kind of loggerheads? The governor is one of the friendliest people I know, not because I am serving in his government; I am not serving in his government to lick his ass. It is to tell the story of his administration the way it is. I made the point sometimes ago that the greatest gift he has given to me is that he has not made me a propagandist. I do not have to stand up to say things that do not exist. Every single thing I say about Governor Umahi is tangible and verifiable and I will not deviate from that.
Your state has become a leading rice producer in Nigeria. How did it begin?
I have a very positive story to tell about Ebonyi State. It has been such a great narrative about how Nigeria needs to diversify its economy; we took that to heart. Ebonyi has nothing else going for it other than allocation from the centre and we realised that allocation from the centre is dwindling. In the month of April, Ebonyi got only N450m. There was a time Ebonyi used to receive N6b. Former Governor Martin Elechi had an average income of N5.5b throughout the period of eight years he was in power; that is verifiable. The current government has an average of N2.1bn and, of that, N1.6bn goes to overheads, subvention to universities, colleges of education, general hospitals and so on. Incidentally, we have a governor who is very interested in infrastructure, given the fact that he is an engineer.
But beyond being an engineer, Abakaliki hasn’t had a capital until the current effort that is being made. In the last 18 months, he has constructed about 250km of roads within the urban areas. But it quickly dawned on us that allocations might end tomorrow and if it did, Ebonyi is one of those states identified as probably not viable, once allocation ends. Because of our peculiar history, the possibility of returning to a situation whereby Ebonyi is part of a larger political entity where nothing happens in that section and those here from the South East will probably understand that Ebonyi basically has been the weeping child of the South East since the period we had Eastern region.
There is this recent headline that a bag of rice sells for N8,000 in Ebonyi State…
That is true in one sense, depending on the type of rice and the stage of processing you are talking about. If it is unprocessed rice because when the CBN Governor and the chairman of Presidential Task Force on Rice Production and the Minister of Agriculture visited Ebonyi, last week, they went to a very large farm complex where basically the centrepiece of Ebonyi rice production is. The local farmers made a case that, with the assistance of the anchor borrower scheme that the CBN is doing, Ebonyi State was able to borrow certain amount of money and gave to farmers by way of inputs like fertilizers, herbicides and grains. They said rice is now moving from N5, 000 to N8,000 per bag. He was talking about unprocessed paddy rice which will normally yield eight barns. In Ebonyi State, the price is between N6,500 to N9,000. Two of those will make 50kg and 50kg of rice from Ebonyi is between N13,000 to N18,000, depending on the quality. We wanted to follow up on that. It happens that right now, we are harvesting. Ebonyi is meeting the largest proportion of its harvest of rice since history. That was possible because the government borrowed N2 Billion from CBN, bought about 50 tractors and gave to cooperative societies and individuals who have the capacity to produce. I own a rice farm of about 100 hectares which I am also harvesting right now.
The challenge was to break the jinx of not being able to harvest up to four, five, six metric tonnes of rice per hectare. We are doing that right now which is why I’m confident that, by the end of harvest season this year, Ebonyi would have reached the mass of production that will satisfy local needs. If we are successful in the dry season farming we are trying to embark on from December to April, we would have satisfied local needs and then be able to saturate selected markets in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja with Ebonyi rice. One of the positive things is that Ebonyi rice used to be called stoneville or stonefest, which has changed. If you eat Ebonyi rice today and you encounter stone in the rice, then forget about it.
What is the difference between Ebonyi and a state like Kebbi in terms of rice production?
Across the country, Kebbi State is doing extremely well. Kebbi is a very large state in terms of its landmass and its potentials. The difficulty they have is very limited rainfall which is about 2.5mm of rainfall. In Ebonyi, we have about four but Ebonyi is only about 4,500 square kilometers, while for a state like Kebbi, it is up to 18,000 square kilometers. This means Ebonyi can fit into Kebbi State three, four times. Therefore, they have a much larger disposable and cultivable land for rice. But I think the advantage we have is that our rice does not require much of fertilizer.
You may have seen some news spreading in the social network about some people in China using plastic to produce pellets as rice…
How true that is, I have no idea, but the truth is most of the rice imported to Nigeria, much of it has been in storage for about 10 years. Such rice cannot be good for local consumption. Ebonyi has the record of being the only state in this country to produce organic rice. The price may be premium, but why spend money buying food supplements when actually you can eat healthy? That is why the Ebonyi State governor has banned the sale and consumption of foreign rice.
Is there any legal framework for that?
He is the Chief Security Officer of Ebonyi State and if the threats to lives come from whichever direction, right from the food you consume, he has every constitutional right to take action. In fact, the governor is asking that ‘what legal framework does he have to take action against the outbreak of cholera? It is more or less the same because it is a threat to lives of the citizens of the state and he has every legitimate right to take action. And, of course, more importantly, the Federal Government is in full support of that. When the Minister of Agriculture came, he lent that support. NAFDAC has the responsibility of certifying food, if it escapes NAFDAC, what do you expect to happen? Will you invite NAFDAC to Ebonyi State or ask NAFDAC to come and crosscheck all the rice? But as a lawyer, I think the governor has legal entitlements to do what he has done.
And how has that impacted on employment drive in the state?
It has impacted very positively. I will use a personal experience. I use a combination of mechanisation and direct labour on my farm, from the process of clearing the bush, tilling the land, transplanting and broadcasting of rice, application of fertilizers and the harvesting which is ongoing now. All of that has staggered in such a way that mechanisation, using the tractors to plough was done. But above all, we concentrated on employing local labour to do that. As at last week Friday, 3,000 people have worked on my farm and that has happened across all the farms in Ebonyi State, including the governor’s own farm. Every member of the Ebonyi State cabinet has, at least, two hectares of rice farm; it was made compulsory. All portions of land that were lying fallow were distributed to cabinet members and that was to give impetus to all citizens to buy into the idea of rice cultivation because if the governor is doing it, if the commissioners are doing it, then there should be no reason why everybody else is not doing it.
Youth unemployment is being affected. N250,000 was made available to about 7,000 youths and women to participate by way of soft loans through the N2 Billion loan that the state government got from CBN at interest of about nine per cent. The government has taken responsibility of paying the nine per cent. The CBN economics of rice production is N248, 000 per hectare. So, we gave N250,000 per farmer. The additional money on top of the N250, 000 is for ongoing maintenance because rice production is a very tedious process. You have to clear the bush; you have to till the bush; you have to do a nursery where you first broadcast rice that you transplanted on the field after tilling it. Then, you weed and, after that, you apply NPK Fertiliser. After two weeks, you apply Urea Fertiliser. You weed again and then you ensure that you take measures to prevent pest, especially birds. Then you harvest and thresh and bag. After that, you parboil. The parboiling process is one of the most convoluted processes one can think about. You put quantity of rice in a big drum overnight. The next day you pour it out and then put it in the same drum. This time, you do not fill it with water until the steam comes out. Then you dry and bag it again. You then take it to the processing mill where ultimately the chaffs are removed and you have your grain rice. That is so labour intensive. By the time you’ve done all of that, at least, 20 people will be employed in the processing of 100kg of rice.
Do you have a farmer’s congress in the state?
We don’t have farmer’s congress. Farmer’s congress is just another bureaucratic organ that will completely kill the whole thing; it is like a trade union. But we have cooperative societies. In every ward, we have, at least, 10 cooperative societies. It is a good policy the CBN set up, through which they can only disburse funds to cooperative societies. The maximum is 25 farmers per cooperatives. So, we have more than 200 farmers’ cooperative societies in the state.
Agriculture appears to be the flagship of this administration’s agenda…
Yes, it is agriculture. We have nothing else. If we don’t do this, we’ll sink. It is a swim or sink situation for Ebonyi.