Opinion
The Ministry Of Livestock Development
From the reactions of the populace since the announcement of the creation of the Federal Ministry of Livestock Development on Tuesday by President Bola Tinubu, it is obvious that many people did not see that coming.
In February this year, the federal government had announced its resolution to implement the Stephen Oronsaye report that called for a leaner government by merging some agencies and scrapping some others. The president was widely applauded for that decision which many believe will reduce cost of governance and save money to tackle pressing challenges in the country.
The kick-off of this was still being awaited when the announcement for the creation of another ministry came. By this development we now have 46 ministries, the highest in the history of the country.
Apparently, President Tinubu, just like many other well-meaning, patriotic Nigerians is disturbed about the state of the nation’s economy and the unabating insecurity in the land. As a way of tackling these challenges he, on September 15th, 2023, approved the establishment of the Presidential Committee dedicated to the reform of the livestock industry and the provision of long-term solutions to recurring clashes between herders and farmers in the country.
The establishment of the Ministry of Livestock Development was part of the recommendations of the National Livestock Reforms Committee. Part of the 21 recommendations submitted to the president include: “This agenda should include the establishment and resuscitation of grazing reserves as suggested by many experts and well-meaning Nigerians and other methods of land utilisation.
“Create the Ministry of Livestock Resources in line with practice in many other West African countries. In the alternative, Federal and State Governments should expand the scope of existing Departments of Livestock Production to address the broader needs of the industry,” among others.
The livestock industry is a vital component of any economy, contributing significantly to various economic and social aspects. Two agriculturists were on a national radio on Wednesday and spoke expansively about these benefits which include: job creation, increase to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and foreign exchange earning through the exports of livestock and livestock products such as meat, dairy, wool and leather.
The livestock industry creates millions of jobs directly in farming, processing, and distribution, and indirectly in related sectors like feed production, veterinary services, and marketing. It provides livelihoods for rural populations, helping to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in rural areas.
According to them, a well-funded livestock industry supports the growth of agro-processing sectors, such as meat packing, dairy processing, and leather manufacturing, adding value to raw products and creating additional economic activity.
It stimulates the development of supply chains, including logistics, packaging, and retail, contributing to broader economic growth. It enhances economic resilience by diversifying the agricultural sector and providing a buffer against crop failures or other agricultural shocks and many more.
Some other agriculturists have also opined that the livestock industry in Nigeria is currently underdeveloped and that by the creation of the ministry of livestock development will open up the industry which will be a huge money spinner for Nigeria.
While their points are quite logical, it must be stated that these can still be achieved without the creation of a new ministry. There is the department of livestock in the ministry of agriculture both at the federal and state levels. Why not empower them to do the job? The National Livestock Reforms Committee even recommended the expansion of the scope of existing Departments of Livestock Production by both federal and state governments to address the needs of the industry.
Why not take that option instead of creating a new ministry with all the attendant costs at a period the citizens are faced with severe hardship and no food to eat? If adequate concern is given to the various departments of livestock as the new ministry will most likely receive, they will function effectively and the best results will be achieved.
Why do we like changing nomenclature all the time and achieving the same result or even nothing? For instance, what has the Ministry of the Niger Delta Development achieved that is different from that of the NDDC since it was created? Since Limited was added to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) thereby making it (NNPCL), what changes have we seen?
To get Nigeria on the right footing has nothing to do with duplication of ministries or agencies. It has to do with the determination of the leader to do the right thing, appointing the right people to the right positions, irrespective of the tribe, religion or political affiliations. If the Ministry of Livestock Development was created to appease a certain section of the country in order to secure their votes in 2027, as being insinuated by some people, then it is very unfortunate. Former President Goodluck Jonathan built Almajiri schools as a political strategy. Did that make him win the election?
The president should discard this selfish idea if he has it at the back of his mind and focus on repositioning this country through good policies and exemplary leadership and he will naturally have the support of Nigerians during the next election. He should begin to fulfil all the promises he made to the citizens like the launching of about 2,700 Compressed Natural Gas, CNG-powered buses and tricycles before May 29, 2024, making our local refineries functional and many more.
Nigerians are skeptical that the new Ministry of Livestock Development is merely a political gimmick that will go the way of many other “political projects” in the past and that it is another way of compensating some party loyalists. Tinubu therefore has to prove the skeptics wrong by ensuring that only the right, qualified people are employed in the ministry. Square pegs must be put in square holes.
There should be a holistic look at the challenges facing the agriculture sector which is largely responsible for the food shortage the country is grappling with currently. The issue of insecurity must be handled headlong to enable farmers go back to their farms. Attention must also be paid to irrigation, provision of fertiliser at subsidised rates to ensure adequate food supply at all seasons. Whatever needs to be done to guarantee surplus food supply in the country should be done so that the people will have food to eat. Livestock is important but let us have food to eat first.
It is also important that the relevant agencies should embark on sensitisation and education of the populace on the functions and scope of the new ministry. The notion that livestock is all about cows and dairy production can be destructive and must be corrected. Every part of the country is involved in one form of livestock or another – piggery, goat rearing, fishery, snail rearing and many more. They should all be carried along.
In summary, the livestock industry is integral to economic development, providing essential contributions to employment, food security, industrial growth, and social well-being. Investing in and supporting this sector is crucial for fostering sustainable and inclusive economic growth. But it must be done in the proper manner and with sincerity of purpose.
Calista Ezeaku
Quote:”Communities have rights to peace, safety, and quality of life. Noise pollution, crowds, or other impacts from religious activities can affect these rights. Balancing these interests requires consideration and dialogue”.
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown