The Promise of Kebbi
Serene and productive, Atiku Bagudu’s Kebbi is gradually being transformed into the country’s prime hub for economic development through agriculture, writes Solomon Elusoji
Bagudu is upbeat that there will be more rice mills, as production continues to increase. We want to build a noodle factory that uses rice...We are partnering the Lagos State Government to build a rice mill; and part of why we are doing that is to be able to use the chaff from the rice to form briquettes
Kebbi State has become synonymous with rice production. In 2017, the state earned about N150 billion from the sale of its locally cultivated rice. But rice is hardly the only product grown in the state, whose economy is agrarian. In 2018, the state began the cultivation of 47,000 hectares of cassava as raw material for the production of ethanol biofuel.
“We have partnered Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), and we have started ethanol programme in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area and other local government areas will soon join,” the state Governor, Atiku Bagudu, said during his second term inauguration on May 29.
Governor Bagudu’s short term plan to accelerate Kebbi’s development is to create a society with income, thus, the focus on agriculture, which has the capacity to employ large numbers of people. Already, his government has supported a bee honey farm (which is primed to export Kebbi’s honey to the world)
and is at the forefront of improving livestock productivity by providing cattle rearers with required infrastructure such as water and improved veterinary education.
“We want Kebbi honey to be sold around the world,” he said in a recent interview with THISDAY. “We have two major rivers: River Niger, over 300 kilometres in Kebbi alone; River Rima, from Sokoto down to Argungu, another 300 kilometres; so we should be selling fish. You should go to a restaurant in Japan or New York and order fish from Yauri; that’s my dream. I believe it would happen one day”, he added.
With taxes from these economic activities, the governor hopes to be able to provide adequate public infrastructure. “Maybe by next year, we should have at least a million people registered in farming, livestock, fisheries. I know who they are, their biometrics and history; then we will request them to contribute to society, so that we can be able to fund the creation of social goods, primary healthcare, primary education and security”, he added.
Development Indicators
These social goods are imperative if Kebbi is to improve on its development indicators. For example, according to the 2016/2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey conducted by the federal government, the rate of newborn deaths per 1,000 births is 55 in the state. This is drastically higher than the national average of 37 deaths per 1,000 births.
Also, the state has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in the country. The Bagudu administration has responded by working with local and international partners to build primary healthcare centres in virtually all the wards in the state, recruited 2000 new teachers, and spent N900 million to support Almajiri education in an attempt to pull in more children into the formal learning system. But these efforts are not enough.
“The World Bank recommends that, to run a good primary education system, you need $700 per pupil. If I use up my entire revenue and close down every other thing, I’ll just be about $190 per pupil,” Bagudu said. “So I need help”.
Economics of RUGA
Bagudu, who trained as an economist, believes that the key to transforming Kebbi and indeed Nigeria, is by raising productivity, especially in agriculture, and exporting to the world. But he is worried about efforts to stifle the expansion of the local economy through resort to ethnic suspicion and division.
Recently, the federal government announced a Rural Grazing Area (Ruga) scheme which was designed to allocate land across the country for commercial ranching activities; but the move was interpreted by the Southern part of the country as an attempt to unfairly cede political and economic power to Northern Fulanis, who would have directly benefited from the scheme. “We are not competing with the world”, Bagudu said, “we are fighting with each other”.
“Ruga is an acronym created by the colonialists,” Bagudu, who is also the Vice Chairman of the National Food Security Council, explained. “It means Rural Grazing Area. In Birnin-Kebbi, at least we have 20 Rugas around. That’s where the Fulanis live. The idea that was developed was that, for the states that have this anthropology, let us help those states, so that the Fulanis living in those settlements can have water, veterinary services, we can teach their women to make yoghurt out of the milk, rather than walk seven kilometres to the market to sell N600 worth of milk. This is so they can stay in one place.
“What does a Fulani do in the morning if there is no water? They would have to walk their cows somewhere. It might be 1km to 3km. In walking their cows somewhere, that’s where things go wrong, because maybe six months ago, a primary school does not exist, and they have to meander round it. And in meandering, things can go wrong. So popula