Tinubu’s Policies Moving Nigeria Towards Food Sufficiency, Says Bagudu
CHIGOZIE AMADI
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, yesterday said President Bola Tinubu’s policies are steadily moving the country’s agriculture towards mechanisation, agro-industrialisation, and global market integration through improved line budgeting, infrastructure investment, access to better financing, and public-private sector synergy.
The Minister while delivering a keynote address at the distinguished personality lecture series of the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, said the incremental success of the policies were evident in the latest National Bureau of Statistics report, which showed encouraging signs for the economy and the agriculture sector.
According to him, with GDP growth of 3.84 percent in Q4 2024 — surpassing the 3.46 percent recorded in Q4 2023 and Q3 2024 — the country was witnessing fruits of President Tinubu’s bold economic reforms.
He disclosed that while the services sector led the growth at 5.37 percent, contributing 57.38 percent to GDP, agriculture’s 1.76 percent growth and 25.59 percent contribution remain vital.
He added, “These figures reveal both progress and the untapped potential in our agricultural industry, which employs over 70 percent of our rural population and holds immense promise for poverty reduction, food security, and industrialisation.
“This sector’s appreciable outcome has benefited from this administration’s policy consistency, which prioritised improved budgetary funding and access to finance, increasing technological innovation and mechanisation, climate resilience, infrastructure development, public-private partnership, and improved security.”
The Minister maintained that the agricultural sector has enjoyed increased budgetary allocation under Tinubu’s administration, noting that it has continued on upward trend from N228.4 billion (1.05% of the 2023 budget) to N362.94 billion (1.32% of the 2024 budget), and N826.5 billion (1.7% of the 2025 budget).
“This is in addition to the N100 billion National Agricultural Development Fund, which the President created in 2023 to address agricultural financing challenges upon declaring a state of emergency in the sector.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria also donated 2.15 million bags of fertilizer worth N100 billion to support farming”, he said.
He said with the improved funding, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has been implementing innovative programmes, including the National Agriculture Growth Scheme-Agro-pocket, where millions of farmers are supported through training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), certified inputs such as improved seeds and organic and inorganic fertilizers and irrigation equipment at highly subsidised prices to enhance their production, increase productivity and ultimately, guarantee higher incomes for farmers.
The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Dr. Ndiame Diop, in his lecture titled, “Leveraging Agricultural Transformation for Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria: Key Considerations,” said with expected growth of Nigeria working population hitting about 100million in the next 25 years, the rapid increase presents a unique opportunity for the country to become a major driver of economic growth.
According to Diop, the growth would surpass Africa and transcend globally considering the aging population in East Asia and Europe.
However, realising the potentials, he said, hinges on Nigeria’s ability to generate millions of additional productive and formal employment opportunities for its increasing educated and tech-savvy young people.
Speaking, Diop said Nigeria’s economy needs to not only grow at a faster pace but also undergo a transformation, noting that the transformation must accelerate the movement of workers from low productivity, low-paying and often informal jobs to more productive and higher-paying positions.
He highlighted how agricultural transformation strengthens the overall competitiveness of the economy, drawing on economic theory and real-world examples to emphasise its vital role in successful economic transformation and the path to higher income levels.
He said, “Nigeria faces a significant demographic shift: approximately 5.5 million Nigerians enter the labor force each year, and its working age population is expected to grow by about 100 million in the next 25 years.
“This rapid increase presents a unique opportunity for Nigeria to become a major driver of economic growth, not just in Africa, but globally, considering the aging populations in East Asia and Europe.
“However, realising this potential hinges on Nigeria’s ability to generate millions additional productive and formal employment opportunities for increasingly educated and tech-savvy young people.
“Creating such a large number of quality jobs is a substantial challenge. In 2019, only about eight percent of employed youth in Nigeria held formal jobs. Notably, African nations tend to create significantly fewer formal jobs per unit of GDP growth compared to other regions, generating roughly half the number seen in East Asia.
“This low proportion of workers in formal sectors, and the resulting dominance of informal, low productivity work, explains why securing employment in most African countries doesn’t guarantee an escape from poverty.
“In fact, in many African nations, including Nigeria, the majority of workers do not earn enough to reliably enter or remain in the middle class.”
He said further, “To substantially improve employment outcomes, Nigeria’s economy needs to not only grow at a faster pace but also undergo a transformation. This transformation must accelerate the movement of workers from low- productivity, low-paying, and often informal jobs to more productive higher-paying positions.
“While individual worker or entrepreneur capabilities contribute to labor productivity, the reality is that average productivity levels vary considerably across sectors, with agriculture typically having the lowest levels in developing countries.
“When at least one-third of the workforce is engaged in agriculture, boosting agricultural productivity becomes paramount for poverty reduction.”
Earlier in his addresses, the Vice Chancellor, UI, Prof. Kayode Adebowale, lauded the organisers, noting that agriculture as a vital sector in Nigeria has continued to contribute significantly to the economy by providing livelihoods, food security, and raw materials, while also playing a vital role in economic diversification and foreign exchange earnings.
He said a stable economy was possible in Nigeria by leveraging the right set of technologies that could promote agricultural transformation.
The event had in attendance officials from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies under the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, officials from across faculty, department and top management staff of the school.
