– Like many other Nigerians, I have strong confidence in the leadership of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari. It is true that many others may dispute my stand. However the facts are there. The Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria, launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015, has made more than 300 billion Naira to more than 3.1 million smallholder farmers of 21 different commodities (including Rice, Wheat, Maize, Cotton, Cassava, Poultry, Soy Beans, Groundnut, Fish), cultivating over 3.8 million hectares of farmland.
– Presidential Fertiliser Initiative was launched as a government-to-government partnership between the Nigerian and Moroccan Governments, in December 2016, the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) produced ~12million 50kg bags of NPK 20:10:10 equivalent in 2020, bringing total production since inception to over 30 million 50kg bags equivalent; and number of participating blending plants increased to 44 from three at inception.
– Under the Special-Agro Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) Programme, agro-processing centres will be established across the country. The agro-processing centres will be provided with basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and roads as well as facilities for skills training. Seven (7) States and the FCT selected for the pilot phase, due to commence 2021: Ogun, Oyo, Imo, Cross River, Kano, Kaduna, Kwara.
– Also, the Green Imperative – a Nigeria-Brazil Agricultural Mechanisation Programme is aimed at boosting agricultural production in Nigeria. The National Assembly has approved a loan for the financing of the program, which will involve the development of 632 privately-operated primary production (mechanisation) Service Centers and 142 Agro processing (value addition) service Centres across the 774 LGAs, and the reactivation of 6 privately owned partially-operational or moribund tractor assembly plants nationwide. It will also train 100,000 new extension workers.
– In 2016, President Buhari launched the National Social Investment Programme, currently the largest such programme in Africa and one of the largest in the world. Currently, the National Social Register of poor and vulnerable Nigerians (NSR) has 32.6 million persons from more than 7 million poor and vulnerable households, identified across 708 local government areas, 8,723 wards and 86,610 communities across the 36 States of the country and the FCT.
– From this number, 1.6 million poor and vulnerable households (comprising more than 8 million individuals, in 45,744 communities from 5,483 Wards of 557 LGAs in 35 states and the FCT are currently benefiting from the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program, which pays a bimonthly stipend of N10,000 per household.
– In January 2019, President Buhari launched Nigeria’s Micro-Pension Scheme – which allows self-employed persons and persons working in organisations with less than 3 employees to save for the provision of pension at retirement or incapacitation. There was also the establishment of Survival Fund, National Youth Investment Fund, and National Special Public Works Program(774,000 beneficiaries across 774 LGAs nationwide), and the Central Bank’s Covid-19 300 billion Naira Targeted Credit Facility (TCF)– more than 150 billion Naira disbursed so far –to support millions of small businesses, households and young people,with federal grants, loans and stipends. His Survival Fund has provided its grants (Payroll Support, Artisan and Transport Sector grants, and General MSME grants) to more than 800,000beneficiaries, since the last quarter of 2020. It has also provided free business registration to more than 200,000 MSMEs across the country. There is also the presidential approval for the establishment of the Nigeria Investment and Growth Fund (NIG-Fund), in 2021. As at the end of 2020, Development Bank of Nigeria (which commenced operations in 2017) had disbursed 324 billion Naira in loans to more than 136,000 MSMEs, through 40 Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs). (57% of the beneficiaries are women-owned MSMEs while 27% are youth-owned). Bank of Industry has disbursed more than 900 billion Naira in loans to over 3 million large, medium, small and micro enterprises, since 2015.
– In January 2019, President Buhari launched Nigeria’s Micro Pension Scheme – which allows self-employed persons and persons working in organisations with less than 3 employees to save for the provision of pension at retirement or incapacitation.
– Since he assumed office, the Buhari has committed more than N1.7 trillion of capital intervention to Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, through various means, including TETFund – with the universities taking the lion share of the total amount. The Federal Government has disbursed more than 170 billion naira in UBE Matching Grants to States and the FCT since 2015, 8 billion Naira in Special Education Grant to States and private providers of Special Education, and 34 billion Naira from the Teachers Professional Development Fund to States and the FCT. The launch of the Alternate School Programme (ASP) was designed to ensure that every out-of-school child in Nigeria gains access to quality basic education, irrespective of social, cultural or economic circumstance, in line with the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4). There is also the presidential approval for a new (extended) Retirement age of 65 and Length of Service of 40 years for Teachers in Public Basic and Secondary Schools in Nigeria (both effective January 1, 2021), as well as a new Special Teachers Salary Scale (effective January 1, 2022), and also a new Special Teachers Pension Scheme. Significantly, there is the reduction in number of out-of-school children, by 3,247,590, as at 31st December, 2020, achieved through a World-Bank financed program known as ‘Better Education Service Delivery for All’(BESDA). 1,792,833 of that number achieved through formal schools while 1,454,757 are through non-formal interventions such as Almajiri, Girl-Child, Nomadic/Migrant and IDPs Education).
– Under the World Bank-supported Innovation Development & Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project, approved in 2020, US$200m will be invested in 6 participating States (Abia, Benue, Ekiti, Gombe, Kano, Edo) as well as 20 Federal Science and Technical Colleges nationwide. Implementation will be stepped-up in 2021 to afford millions of Nigerian youths the opportunity to acquire hands-on skills to effectively contribute to national development.
– In the area of grants to state governments, at least $2.5 million disbursed to each state of the federation and the FCT, under the Saving One Million Lives (SOML) initiative, to improve health outcomes. For the first time since the National Health Act was passed in 2014, the Federal Government in 2018 began including the 1% minimum portion of the Consolidated Revenue Fund – amounting to 55 billion Naira in 2018 – to fund the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF). The fund is designed to deliver a guaranteed set health services to all Nigerians, through the national network of Primary Health Care centers.
– Passage of enabling legislation for the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), for the first time since it was founded in 2011 was also witnessed. President Buhari approved a grant of 5 billion naira for the NCDC in March 2020, as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Equally a number of key federal hospitals across the country are being upgraded to effectively manage cancer and other major health challenges. Cancer Radiotherapy machines and other equipment are being provided to these hospitals. The National Hospital in Abuja has already received two LINAC (cancer treatment) machines.
– Also the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) in March 2018 invested US$10m to establish a world-class Cancer Treatment Center at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and US$5m each in the Aminu Kano University Teaching Hospital and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, to establish modern diagnostic centres. These centers have all been completed and are now operational. The Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) in 2017 completed a long-overdue revision of the list of activities that can benefit from Nigeria’s Pioneer Status Incentive, which grants beneficiary companies a 3 to 5-year tax holiday. The revision, done more than 10 ten years after the last one, has modernised the list, expanding the tax holiday incentives to qualifying companies in e-commerce, software development, animation, music, film and TV.
– There is also the restoration of federal budget to January-December cycle, with the 2020 budget, for the first time in 12 years. We also witnessed the introduction, since 2020, of annual Finance (Reform) Bills to accompany the annual Federal Appropriation Bill. There has been negotiation of the billions of dollars in arrears of Cash Calls we inherited when the administration assumed office, resulting in an agreement for a significant discount of more than a billion dollars. Since 2017 the NNPC has commenced payment of the arrears to the Oil Companies. As at Q4 2020, more than $3 billion of the ~$5 billion arrears had been cleared.
– Even in the Niger Delta, the take-off of the Nigerian Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State was witnessed. The university was granted approval in January 2018 by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to commence undergraduate degree programmes effective 2017/18 session, and commenced academic activities on April 12, 2018. There has been the resumption of work on the 337km East-West Road project, originally awarded in 2006. The Buhari Administration expects to complete the project by Q1 2022. He approved 5 billion aira in take-off grant for the Maritime University.
– There is also the setting aside of US$170m seed funding for the Ogoni clean up, in an Escrow Account established for that purpose. The Escrow Agreement Signing Ceremony took place in April 2018. The clean-up commenced in January 2019, with the handover of the first batch of 21 sites to the selected remediation firms, after a painstaking procurement process. As of March 2021, 16 of the first 21 sites had been certified cleaned. Also, approvals for the establishment of private-sector-led Modular Refineries across the nine States of the Niger Delta – the first three Refineries have now been completed, while construction is ongoing on others.
– In the area of asset recovery, the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) has helped anti-corruption agencies devise clearer strategies for obtaining forfeiture of assets suspected to have been acquired fraudulently, mainly from State Coffers, before prosecuting suspected culprits. Part of this work has involved painstakingly reviewing existing Laws (like the Money Laundering Act, 2004, the EFCC Act, 2004 and the ICPC Act, 2000), to identify and highlight sections directly conferring powers of forfeiture on Nigeria’s anticorruption agencies. This advocacy has led to a significant increase in the use of Non-Conviction Based Asset Forfeiture Mechanisms by anti-corruption agencies.
– In addition, the ICPC scrutiny of practices, systems and procedures of MDAs’ personnel cost from 2019 to 2020, yielded 189 billion naira in recoveries from inflated personnel budgets. In 2019 alone ICPC also recovered 32 billion Naira worth of Land, Buildings and Vehicles. The ICPC’s audit of constituency projects covering 2015 to 2018 helped recover 2 billion naira of diverted funds and assets.
– While the war on insecurity gathers momentum, we have made several gains. For instance, the Nigerian Air Force has acquired 26 brand new aircraft since President Buhari assumed office in 2015, and is expecting another 12 (the twelve Super Tucano currently on order from the United States government, due for delivery starting July 2021). President Buhari signed into law, in 2019, the Bill establishing the Police Trust Fund, which will significantly improve funding for the Nigeria Police Force. Nigeria Police Force launched a new National Command and Control Center in Abuja in 2019.
– As part of Criminal Justice Reforms, President Buhari in 2020 granted amnesty to 2,600 prisoners nationwide, representing about 3.5 percent of all inmates, in a bid to decongest Nigeria’s prison population. The beneficiaries were those 60 years and above; those suffering from ill-health that might likely lead to death; convicts serving three years and above and have less than six months to serve; inmates with mental health defect; and inmates with a pending fine not exceeding N50,000 and with no pending cases. Presidential approval for commencement of Community Policing Programme nationwide, and release of take-off funding has been witnessed. The community policing programme has now been enshrined into the Police Act, 2020.
– The list is endless and the efforts which would ensure that Nigeria gets out of whatever mess it is currently in will eventually pay off.
– Reverend Adeagbo sent in this piece from Ibadan
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