Premabiri Rice Project: Reflections

The issues about closure of Nigerian borders with neighbouring countries, for economic and security purpose, have been generating mixed reactions and misgivings by various people and interest groups. One major or visible effect of the border closure policy is the rising cost of food items, particularly rice.
Reasons necessitating the border closure are quite valid on the long-run, but the biting effects on the population raise humanitarian question.
Someone gave a humorous parable that if in an effort to encourage your children to learn how to roast corn, your house gets burnt down, then, such project makes no economic or security sense. But border closure has no basis for comparison with roasting of corn. However, managing the affairs of a nation demands the application of three vital management principles, namely: efficiency, effectiveness and continuity (EEC principles).
Efficiency has to do with internal organizational cohesion arising from sound division of labour, cooperation, motivation, accountability and speed and economy in the accomplishment of tasks. These would demand a clear road map. Effectiveness is determined by the ability to accomplish objectives as planned, coupled with the quality of services and level of satisfaction derived by those being served. These are achievable by the installation and operation of adequate control measures. Continuity is the ability to remain stable and grow, because people happy.
What determines the happiness and cooperation of people in a management process is largely the level of transparency, accountability and sense of responsibility exhibition by a management team. Wherever those taking on the duty of managing the affairs of a nation are seen to deviate from the rules of transparency, accountability and responsibility, then, the cooperation and patriotism of the masses would dwindle.
In the case of management public affairs in Nigeria, there is an obvious loss of confidence in the psyche of the masses towards the leadership. If nobody has had the sincerity to state this fact in public, the reason is that people are afraid to says the truth. Wherever the masses are afraid to say the truth but resort to flattery because it pays to do so, what results is a slow decline.
Once upon a time when Rivers State included current Bayelsa State, there was an agriculture project involving the production of rice in large scale, in Peremabiri located in Bayelsa State. Conception of the project was noble and full of good intentions, including the creation of job opportunities and food for the masses. Feasibility study was undertaken by some zealous and expert authorities, vast area of land acquired for the purpose, and personnel trained and hired. There were great expectation!
Today, the memory of the Peremabiri Rice Project evokes not only sadness but mockery as well. Sadness, because it was a failed project, despite the initial enthusiasm, expectations and huge revenue invested therein, Mockery arose from the fact that some cynical persons right from the initial stage predicted a possible failure of the project. Failure of the Peremaabiri Rice Project, for those cynical persons, became a self-fulfilled prophecy. What the cynics foresaw came to pass.
What would be of vital interest to the reading public in this article, include what the cynical persons saw earlier which made them to predict a possible failure of the Peremabiri affair. In a situation where foreign agricultural experts were brought to Rivers State, kept in Hotel Olympia and other 5-Star hotels, with bills running into million of naira, the cynics kept watchful eyes.
Were they wrong to predict that gains made from the rice project in the first four years would go into payment of hotel bills?
Obviously, within Nigeria, there are local experts in race cultivation business. Hiring some of such local rice farmers to pass on their experiences and skills, to boost the Peremabiri project would have reduced costs considerably. They would not have been lodged in S-Star hotels but would gladly have lived with Peremabiri indigenes. A Local Content Policy can be interpreted and meant to include the identification and effective utilisation of locally available talents, abilities and resources. We know how patriotic our elites are in the encouragement and consumption of what products that are available with us, locally.
It was quite instructive, interesting but really shocking, listening to what a PhD student under my supervision had to say about what he meant by “kill and divide” culture in Nigerian business and political affairs. It is like saying: “You provide the fire and I would provide the sacrifice.” With regards to doing business in Nigeria, the “Kill-and-divide culture translates into the mechanism of corrupt practices, whereby one person provides the contract, and another does the dark deals.
These are well known facts, even though some people would pretend not to be aware that sharp and unethical practices have resulted in the killing of state-sponsored projects and the dividing of the spoil arising there from. Therefore, what became of the Peremabiri Rice Project would not be different from the fate of other failed projects also.
We had Rubber Estates, Oil-palm Estates, Brewing and Bottling Companies, Fisheries and Banana Farms, Fibre Boat Building Companies and made attempt to establish a business estate in Ahoada, what happened to all these projects?
The cynical persons whose prophesy about Peremabiri Rise Project became a reality, would tell us that the “kill-and-divide” culture accounts for why we have failed projects in Nigeria. With all good intentions, border closure would throw up a few people who would turn it into a failed project.
Why so? The EEC Principles in management can give us some answers.