The Chief Executive Officer of SARG Investment Limited, Prince Orji Ukpai, has called on the Abia State governor, Dr Alex Otti to spend the N5 billion meant for palliative on investing massively in rice farming.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, Prince Orji, who is the South East vice president of the National Rice Producers Processors Millers Association of Nigeria (NARPPMAN), urged the governor not to distribute cash to Abia residents which will give them temporary joy.
The Federal Government is giving each state N5 billion to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal. What if your reaction?
For the purpose of clarify, the issue of fuel subsidy removal has been highly debated. Some school of thought says there was nothing like subsidy; that it was just a conduit pipe to drain the resources of the country. Some others believe that petrol was actually subsidised, but the issue was the abrupt manner in which the subsidy was removed. There was supposed to be discussions and plans on how the subsidy should be removed so that the effect would not be so much on the citizens, and the necessary palliatives should have be on ground before the removal.
However, since it has been removed, the issue facing us is how to mitigate the negative impacts it would cause to the people. It is against this background that the Federal Government is giving N5 billion to each state and some bags of rice to states depending on their sizes. Many say the quantity of rice given to each state is laughable. And I agree because it is a mere handout that may hardly last beyond three days. So, after you finish it within that short period, what happens? You go back to where you were coming from.
Take a state like Abia, the bags of rice given to her when divided would see each ward getting about 18 bags. Each ward in some cases has more than five villages, and when you divide it, you find out that two villages share a bag of rice.
As an investor in agriculture, real estate etc, how will you advise Abia State governor, Alex Otti on how to go about with the N5 billion?
As an entrepreneur, whose business cuts across all sectors of the economy, be it agriculture, real estate and food and beverage, I will narrow my discussion on the N5 billion palliative incentive with focus on how it would turn around the fortune of Abia, a state governed by Dr. Alex Otti, who came into governance on the platform of the Labour Party, a party whose campaign and citizens mobilisation mantra during the 2023 election was centred on a policy that sees production as an engine or the soul that must replace the nation’s consumption attitude. With this in mind, I will submit that the governor needs not to look elsewhere to tinker other than to subject himself as a test case in the utilisation of the proposed N5 billion palliative incentives from the Federal Government, which I understood that about 42 per cent of the fund is a loan to be paid back, while about 48 per cent is a grant.
I will, at this point, remind Governor Otti about the biblical parable of the talents and also of the fact that even God, from the beginning of creation, ingrained in man the wisdom of not to eat his seed all, but to multiply it gainfully. Having this conviction for Governor Otti, his rich background, coming from the private sector and who has played at the highest level in management and application of money, that he must put the citizens on the path of growth, to ensure prudent use of part of the N5 billion to create jobs in agriculture and agro processing, which would impact the lives of many people.
As a farmer and a player in the rice production value chain, I can categorically say that Abia has the largest concentration of rice farm land and it leads in rice production in the South East Zone. It is unfortunate that the past governments failed in identifying this and the glory went to other neighbouring states.
Governor Alex Otti can create an immediate 4,000 agro processing jobs with one billion naira deployed to cultivate 2,000 hectares of the rice farm land for a four-month production life span, which at the end of a post-harvest will earn the state more than 1.8 billion return from the processed rice and this earning, apart from creating this number of employment, will equally make food sufficient enough to serve the needs of its people and beyond.
Just as I have stated here, the governor doesn’t need to tinker elsewhere in justifying that he was ready to reposition Abia on the path of greatness, as he campaigned. The subsidy regime and the economic situation which the citizens have come to face and which necessitated the federal government decision to give out the N5 billion would be his litmus test.
If he takes this advice and put 4,000 unemployed youths of Abia into a productive engagement in agriculture and agro processing, he would be applauded to have started fulfilling his campaign mantra of, from consumption to production. In this direction, he can then begin to look inward into those areas where the state has a comparative advantage in agriculture and agro processing to get the youths gainfully occupied, guarantee food production to feed its citizens and then target for export.
However, if he decides to use the money to buy rice and share to the people, they would praise him that day. After they have finished the food in three days, they would start asking what he did with the N5 billion given to him as palliative. So, it is better for him to take this advice and create job and make food available to Abians and others.
How would he apply the money so that no group or people would feel short-changed?
To ensure a spread, the rice producing area communities will be captured as the host to serve as the agro processing zone, with two persons per hectares on cluster to cluster basis and the deployment procedure will cut across all the 17 local government areas of the state, comprising both the existing small holder rice farmers and other unemployed youths.
How do you access the governor for his 100 days in office?
Obviously, I must say that it will be very unfair if I have to talk on Governor Otti’s performance. I think at this point it is too early and I would rather wait before jumping the gun. However, I understand going by his mission statement, he has things that are to him priorities. So, maybe in the months ahead I will make comments on that, but from what I’m seeing and hearing, he is going to finish excellently. He doesn’t have any reason not to deliver because so much is expected from him. Abia has suffered infrastructural deficit for so long. He should change the narrative.
The governor said he was going to leverage on the private sector to drive the development of the state. As a successful real estate developer, have you given him a proposal on estate development in the state?
The background of Otti is potential enough to believe on what he said during his campaigns. Coming from the private sector, I am therefore optimistic that he would definitely leverage on collaborating with the private sector to move the state forward on the path of development and growth.
Abia lacks decent and basic infrastructure, and development has never been rapid since the creation of the state. Even Umuahia, being the state capital has never shown any sign of urban development which is obviously a pity. It is rather unfortunate that the previous government did not do anything about it or came up with a well-structured development master plan. I believe Governor Otti knows about this and has a good plan to change the face of Abia in the area of infrastructure.
As a player in the real estate sector, yes there was already a real estate project that was ongoing to develop a smart city in Umuahia. This was conceived under a Public Private Partnership with the immediate past government and now that we have the new government in place, I have started the move to meet with the governor. I have the optimism that he will welcome the idea of this project with both hands, as it falls within his private sector partnership participation plan. This project will be the first of its kind in the state.
You are a big time rice farmer in the state. What should be done for the state to meet the rice needs of its people and other states?
Like I said, and based on my knowledge, Abia no doubt has the largest both developed and undeveloped rice farm land in the southern region of Nigeria, and when utilized, this will put Abia to be the largest rice producing state even in the South East. But it is unfortunate that this record is not captured because the previous governments did not know and never took agriculture as a competitive business.
There is already in existence a small holder rice farmers database and structure within the rice producing communities, which needed to be strengthened and with this and a coordination of a private sector participation in form of a consortium or collaboration arrangement with the Abia State government, then a two-circle rice production can be achieved yearly. And with that, the state will regain its top place as a rice producing state and be able to feed its people and other states of the South East.
The governor shouldn’t look far, he should look for people like us in the rice value chain to create employment and put food on the table of his people.