Adventures of ‘Farmer Bago’

Niger State Governor Mohammed Bago comes across as deeply passionate about goals he sets his sight upon, and heavy on optics towards accomplishing them. In other words, he not only rallies followership in pursuit of his goals, he also acts out the leading charge in implementation efforts. Gut drives are typically heated and cannot but affront the coldness of conventions and habits. But to make sense of such drives, you’ll need to assess them in light of the driver’s objectives.

The Niger governor was last week reported  to have banned workers in the state civil service from wearing native attires like kaftan, babanriga and flowing gowns to work from Mondays to Thursdays. The ban was said to be with immediate effect and applied to both male and female civil servants. Fridays are exempt, naturally, because it is the day for Jummat prayer and less business intense. 

Reports said Bago announced the ban penultimate Saturday during presentation of land development and preparation equipment at a farming establishment in Wushishi council area of the state. In handing down the purported prohibition, he said civil servants must dress like workers who work to create wealth and not noblemen, adding that any worker who fail to comply with the directive would be dismissed from service. For contextualisation, we should note that the governor spoke in a cultural setting where wearing native attires on all days and for all purposes – including work – is the norm. He spoke in Hausa language, as captured in a video clip that went viral, and reports translated him as saying: “From Monday, we will issue an order preventing civil servants from wearing kaftan and babanriga to work between Monday and Thursday. No babanriga, no kaftan, we are here to work. Anybody who wants to wear babanriga should resign. We are also going to engage in serious farming activities going forward.” He explained that his government was committed to changing the orientation and narrative that civil service was all about sitting in offices with flowing gowns and nice clothes, expending public money and doing nothing to create wealth. The youth, civil servants, politicians and traditional officeholders, according to him, must all go back to the farm.

Apparently leading the charge in his ‘Back to the land’ battle cry, the governor, early last week, took on honorifics. He said he should no longer be addressed as ‘His Excellency’ – that conventional designation of Executive helmsmen – or ‘Honourable,’ or indeed ‘Mr. Governor,’ but rather as ‘Farmer Governor.’ The real effect of this title change on his socio-political status is inconsequential at best, if you asked me, but Bago obviously was laying into optics. After all, Canadian bi-linguist and former editor of Quebec’s largest English-language weekly, The Suburban, Beryl Wajsman, wrote in a 2007 column that “the optique (French term roughly equivalent to optics) is everything.” Speaking during his presentation of the 2024 Niger budget to the state house of assembly, the governor said the new designation he was adopting was aimed at reinforcing the priority his administration placed on agriculture “I want to inform the people of Niger State that from today, my nomenclature has changed and I wish to be addressed as ‘Farmer Governor Bago’ from henceforth.” Whether he seriously intended that anybody outside Niger State should notice or apply the title change is moot. But he put it out there.

And the governor wasn’t done with the title change: he came for the budget presentation – a thoroughly business affair – in a tee-shirt and trousers. Never mind that the outfitting was extremely odd, almost a faux pas for the business heeled occasion. He apparently intended his casual appearance to underscore the ‘down to earthness’ of the agrarian way of life he was advocating. Take that for optics! The governor also used the event to clarify his earlier directive, saying he had not banned wearing of native attires by civil servants as widely reported. According to him, he only stressed the need for civil servants working in ministries of works, agriculture and others that require physical activity to dress in outfits that would enable them to function properly. It was helpful he made that clarification because it had been difficult reconciling the earlier reported version of his directive with the patriotic advocacy promoting Nigerian culture and products – in this case, attires.

“There is more to achieving (agrarian renaissance) than mere optics or sloganeering.”

Bago’s enthusiasm for agrarian renaissance must be appreciated and applauded. But there is more to achieving the objective he touts than mere optics or sloganeering. Our nationhood experience in Nigeria shows that hypes – ‘Operation Feed the Nation,’ ‘Green Revolution,’ ‘Back to the Land’ et al – have not resulted in agricultural boom because they did not address the core issue of systemic fundamentals required as sub-structure for a successful campaign. One of these is the difficulty of access to arable land. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo led the charge on ‘Operation Feed the Nation’ in the late 70s, he ended up appropriating much of the land that could have been available to ordinary citizens seeking to engage in agriculture for himself. Another fundamental is lack of access to long-term, low cost funding for agricultural enterprise. Notice that there is no financial institution as of now dedicated to citizen-level agriculture financing, with cost free allowance for the gestation period that is inevitable between planting and harvest time. The ‘anchor borrowers’ scheme that was a pet programme of former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele was a ruse designed to seed-bed his political ambition, and it wasn’t even viably run to ensure successful enterprise and loan repayment by borrowers. Still another fundamental is the difficulty of access to market by farmers with their farm produce. This difficulty is in terms of huge transportation cost, compounded by awful road infrastructure. And that is not to mention lack of access to agriculture value chain that should enhance return on farm produce and incentivize increased output by farmers.

These are some of the issues that the ‘Farmer Governor’ didn’t seem to take account of and envision possible solution pathways in his new push for agrarian renaissance. But there was a more confounding oversight – or was it connivance? – namely the security challenge in Niger State that has hobbled farmers in particular. As recent as last month (November), there were reports that more than 20 maize, soya bean and guinea corn farms on the outskirts of Kontagora, headquarters of Kontagora council area in the state, had been burnt down by suspected bandits demanding a levy of N30million each from farmers to avoid further attacks. Way back in June, bandits’ attacks in several communities in Rafi council area reportedly led to the death of more than 50 farmers. The attacks, which occurred consistently over three days and affected more than five communities, forced several villagers out of their homes and created a humanitarian crisis in the area. And in October, the media reported the chairman of Munya Local Government Area, Najume Abdulamid Kuchi, saying there had been a siege on Zazzaga community resulting in the killing of some farmers and kidnapping of many others. “Honestly speaking, insecurity in Munya has continued unabated. As the LG chairman, on behalf of the people of Munya, I want to confirm to you that attacks happen almost every day now,” Kuchi told a Minna-based radio station on 4th October. He added: “They (bandits) even tax our people to bring their farm produce for settlement, yet they will still come back to attack them. Right now, crops, especially maize, that are due for harvesting are wasting in the farms because farmers cannot access their farms to harvest them. If they go, they get kidnapped.”

It isn’t directly Bago’s responsibility to tackle these security challenges, but it falls on him to work with the security establishment for effective redress. We must ask how much has been achieved in changing the narrative to support his new drive for agricultural rebirth. It is good, indeed commendable, that the Niger governor is investing in procuring farming equipment and rallying state residents to the land. But his exertions would be sensational grand standing if the systemic fundamentals required for a successful campaign are not sorted out.