Buhari’s fertilizer initiative and NSIA legal tenure conundrum CHARLES OFOJI

The Presidential Fertilizer Initiative, PFI, undoubtedly ranks high among the laudable policies of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, looking to be one of the enduring legacies of his administration even long after he must have been gone.

The initiative aims, among other things, to make high-quality fertilizers available to farmers at an affordable price, and to revive the ailing fertilizer blending industry to enable Nigeria achieve food security for its teeming 200 million population. It need not be over-flogged that the uppermost on the list of any serious government should be an efficient and realisable plan to feed its people.

In pursuant of this goal, the Buhari Government has, through the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) invested N107 billion in the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative. There are plans to invest another N107 billion on raw materials, logistics, contract blending costs by third party blenders, among others.

It is heart-warming that the PFI has revived 31 blending plants, thereby increasing domestic production capacity by about 300 percent. Needless to add that it has also improved the quality of fertilizers made available to end users.

In just a few years the impact of the PFI has been positively felt in the agricultural and agrobusiness industry across the country. It is said to have achieved a chunk of its mandate of becoming a model for government’s intervention in critical sectors and a template for state-led import substitution.

Thanks to the PFI, the NPK fertilizer, which was sold for N13,000 per 50kg bag, now sells N5000 and below. This has helped farmers to access more of the product. The result is improved yields, which has gone a long way in enhancing food security.

The NSIA is the major agency of the government driving this programme. To this end, billions of Naira has been poured into it and agreements reached with both indigenous and foreign partners, on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

But going forward, legal scholars have underlined the peril posed by the current NSIA Managing Director, Uchechi Orji entering into agreements with partners, on behalf of the government, after his tenure, as envisaged by the enabling law, has lapsed since October 10, 2020.

They are of the view that his continuous stay in office is a flagrant contravention of Section 20(4) of the Nigeria Investment Authority (Establishment Act), which stipulates that the tenure of the agency’s managing director shall not exceed eight years in total. That law only foresees a maximum of two tenures of four years each.

However, Mr. Orji has been in charge at the agency since his appointment by the President Goodluck administration in 2012. President Buhari had re-appointed him as managing director on October 12, 2017. Instead of in 2016 when his first tenure ought to have expired, according to the NSIA Act. It is difficult to say if this was an oversight or a deliberate violation of the law by the Buhari government.

Even a generous construction of the NSIA Act would fail to legitimize Mr. Orji’s continuous stay in office. Which is why some lawyers see his representation of the government in contract signings as posing a legal jeopardy for the PFI project.

For the avoidance of doubt, under the purview of the NSIA Act, the managing director could only be appointed for a four-year tenure, renewable for another four years. If the law is followed, and should be, his two terms at the helm of NSIA should expire on October 12, 2020.

Noteworthy, is the fact that it could be possible that the attention of President Buhari has not been drawn to the illegal elongation of the MD’S tenure. Mr. Buhari can be accused of any other thing, but he is a man of impeccable integrity, who would not condone any disregard for the law.

Nothing suggests that Mr. Orji is indispensable. Therefore, it would be helpful if the numerous aides of the president drew his attention to this illegality so that the PFI programme is not jeopardized in any way. The desirability of the project cannot be over-emphasized.

It would be in the interest of the nation and the Nigerian people if this anomaly is timely corrected, so as to avert uncomfortable legal implications.

The danger is, some concerned citizens are already taking legal steps to challenge Mr. Orji’s elongated tenure. So what happens if a court of competent jurisdiction declares his continued stay in power as illegal at some point? This would reverberate up to the root of the contracts he signed after his tenure was supposed to have expired. If the court declares him an impostor, with effect from October 12, 2020, the legal implication would be that he had no competence to bind the country by way of contract. The meaning appears to be that all agreements he entered into from that date with partners would be judged as null and void. Certainly, we don’t want this kind of nasty scenario, with huge financial consequences for the country and also for the farmers. This will turn the whole PFI scheme on its head.

This is why it is pertinent that those who have the ear of the president should draw his attention to this in the interest of the nation.