 We're back with the breakfast in Plastidia, Africa. It's time for us to talk about food security in Nigeria. Nekagule will be joining the conversation. Famous in the country under the ages of United Integrated Famous Association of Nigeria have scored the regime of President Mohammad Abu Hari low in tackling the nation's current food crisis. The organization said that there have not been serious intervention in ensuring that Nigeria had food efficiency since the current government came on board eight years ago. You know, for the last past five years, there have not been any serious intervention in food crisis, hunger. I think that Famous has not been supported adequately, and especially those in the grassroots. They also stated that apart from those who've been at home and the calls from family and friends, images, they see that the cost of food one, a lot of people are very unhappy. Even the staple common food that can be produced is expensive and unavoidably for the average Nigerian. And so this has been the conversation that a lot of people have had. We have Nekagule who joins us this morning from Bainway to make sense of the conversation that these Famous are having and their concerns about tackling the nation's current food crisis. Nekagule, thank you so much for joining us. Morning, Masih. Good morning, viewers. I'm actually in Abuja, Majiras Fedrakapetop. I beg your pardon, sir. Thank you so much. But I like us to delve into the thoughts of, I mean, the consent of the Nigerian Famous. They have said that the Buhari administration had failed in tackling food crisis and ensuring food security. Do you really agree with them? I agree with them wholeheartedly. I agree with them 100% because we have not even started agriculture in Nigeria. Agriculture in the modern sense, the 21st century modern economy agriculture is yet to start in Nigeria. There's something that I tell people, I say, in the storm ages, in the storm ages, there were certain things that we were doing. For instance, our mode of transportation was walking with our bare feet. Our mode of communication was shouting across family homes. Our mode of dressing was probably some leaves around our waist. Our mode of housing was probably some caves and all of that. Fast forward to the 21st century, Nigeria has upgraded in every facet. We now have beautiful homes, beautiful automobiles. We have a beautiful clothes. We watch TV, digital TV. We have smartphones and all of that. But there is one thing that has been left behind in all of this. One thing that we are not upgraded. And that is agriculture. In the storm ages, we used to do agriculture but physical work, farmers bending down, we hoe and cutlass, tilling the soil. Fast forward to the 21st century, Nigerian farmers are still bending down, we hoe and cutlass and tilling the soil. And until we upgrade agriculture, just like we have done in every other facet of our life, the issue of food insecurity will still remain with us. Actually, agriculture is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. It should be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. And not oil. Because right now, as we speak, there are countries in the world like the European Union, the EU. The EU says by 2030, which is just several years away from now, they are not going to allow any automobile that is consuming petroleum products on their roads. So no automobile that is using diesel or petrol, which we in Nigeria are taking as our mainstay of our economy. How can that be the mainstay of our economy when it's so endangered? But there is no nation in the world that is going to ban food. There is none. There will be no nation in the world that will have a problem there and say, but so, so, so, so, yeah, we're not going to allow food again. Food will not be consumed by every of the eight billion human beings on earth. And so that is the advantage that we have. We have the comparative advantage. How? Because we have one of the most fertile lands in the world much by a beautiful climate. We see the sunshine at least eight to 10 hours a day. And that is the sunshine that the crops need to grow. We have everything and we have the population to go into the farms and do the work. But the problem is that we have left agriculture behind when we have upgraded in every other facet. And for us to upgrade agriculture, we just simply need to mechanize it so that farmers are no longer using their waste. A farmer that is using his waste, what he will cultivate in a day or what he will use in a year to cultivate, a tractor will cultivate it in a day, a single day. Nick, I mean, I mean, you could go on and on and on in support of this group of farmers who are seeing this currently administration of Muhammad-e-Buhari law when it comes to food security. But we're made to understand by the Minister of Agriculture and Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture just earlier this month, Muhammad-e-Bubakar, that farmers in the country have made more money under the Buhari administration than under recent previous administrations. They made more money in the last eight years. Farmers have never had it this good is what he says. He points to the fact that when President Buhari was elected in 2015, he made it a point to turn Nigeria into an agricultural giant and that they're making so much money. Now, he gives some examples. He talks about, for instance, the Rice Revolution Project of the President, that the farmers are bought into this. Nigeria is a shining example of this in Africa. As we speak, Nigeria is number one in Africa when it comes to rice production. I can tell you, Nick, for a fact, the Ghanians are telling the government, see what the Nigerians have done. Can't we stop importation of rice? They can import rice in Ghana for, I mean, for eternity. They say, okay, we need to start planting rice. The Nigerians are doing it. All the African countries, Liberians, Sierra Leoneans, they eat a lot of rice. I say, see, Nigeria, they are producing rice. Can't we do it? That's number one. Number two, Nigeria, apart from being number one in rice production in the entire African continent, is number one in cassava production in the entire world. In the entire world. And I mean, I'm sure the agriculture minister has his data. When he says, quote, farmers, small, medium, and large have made more money in the last seven and a half years than in previous administrations. So are we sure that it's all doom and gloom for the agricultural sector in Nigeria? The minister of agriculture can put out his data. But we are Nigerians. We live in Nigeria. We see these things. I mean, nobody is going to come to tell us that it's daybreak in Nigeria now because we are in Nigeria and we know that it's daybreak. The minister of agriculture should understand that whatever gains he may have thought have been made in the agricultural sector have been undone by the insecurity in the country. All over the nation. Any way you hear of IDPs, internally displaced persons, these are farmers who have been pushed away, driven away from their farms into some camps. They are farmers driven away from their homestead into some camps all over Nigeria. Any way you hear about IDPs, these are the kind of people. So that alone is something that the minister has to grapple with. But that aside, granted that farmers have made more money, we're talking about the concern. If farmers have made so much money, then what is poverty on the ascendancy? Why is poverty on the rise? That's incongruent. People can be making so much money as the minister is talking about. And data on the other side, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics is saying that Nigerians who are now poor are increasing in numbers. Because these should be the farmers who should not have money to be dealing with their economic needs. You see, what we're talking about here is a student who was posting 5%, 5% performance. And now somebody is saying, okay, because the student is now posting 8%, the student has arrived. The student hasn't arrived. The student has not even got to pass mark yet. The student has not got to president Buhari himself in one of his broadcasts, considered that 85% of Nigeria's arable land is not being cultivated. 85% and I would have expected that after 80 years in office, the president represented by his minister should be telling us that we have moved from 85% uncultivated to just about 60% or 50% uncultivated. That's kind of statistics you put into us. Not some amoofful numbers that cannot be, that does not have a practical basis. Niki, you're talking about insecurity. And that is, of course, we need to acknowledge that government is not the one who's attacking people. But government could argue that in spite of the attacks on innocent Nigerians, by bandits and terrorists and criminals and what have you, and the government has done all it can do to make sure that the situation doesn't get out of hand. I mean, I'm sure we don't have scarcity of food in the country today. I'm sure we don't have a farming, even though despite these challenges, you can still go to the market and buy your food. You can go to the market and buy your crops or your food stuff, your livestock. They're everywhere. I want to point you to another move by the federal government. In conjunction, that's the Ministry of Agriculture and the CBN. You have what you call the Anko Borowas Program Initiative, one of the CBN that is meant to catalyze the productive base of the nation. It's a major part of the economic plan of the federal government. And it's been quite successful. This Anko Borowas Program. So still some things the federal government is putting in place. Are you failing to see the 13 rice pyramids or 13 million bags of rice that were unveiled in Nabuja some time ago? Before I answer your question, let me just talk about the fact that you said if we go to the market, we're seeing food. The food we are seeing in the market, a huge quantum of it is imported. Nigeria is still importing food. You spoke about we being number one in rice production in Africa. We are number one in importation of rice in Africa. Go and check the data. Nick, you got it wrong. Benet Republic is number one, not Nigeria. In importation? Yes. Okay, let us understand that the rice coming to Benet Republic is actually heading to Nigeria. How many people are in Benet? I don't have the data, but I believe Benet Republic could be like five million people at most 10. The whole rice coming in there is heading into Nigeria, where they were consuming the rice. And then you talk about rice pyramids. It is not about rice pyramids. The rice pyramids should translate into reduced cost of food. Because the more you have supply of food, the less the cost. At the advent of this government eight years ago, how come you say bag of rice? I can't remember exactly, but I believe the bag of rice. We seem to have lost Nick right there. I'm struck, I couldn't really see what the cost of the bag of rice was at the time. It was far into, I can't quite remember. It means that a lot has happened since then. Do you remember how much a bag of rice costs at the time? I don't. I don't remember. You know, a lot has happened since then. You know, let me say, I remember during the lockdown, I was trying to get Nick back. A basin of gary was sold at, I think about 500, about 500 naira there about. In the city I lived in, yellow gary, which is my favorite. I'm not so taken aback now because I have to try to watch my tummy. But when I look at the budgets given to me by the caregiver at home, this is what they say, okay. When the lockdown came, within the month of hours, when lockdown was announced, it spiked to 1,000 naira and 1,005 naira. Lockdown has ended, gary hasn't come down to what it was before, you know. And you can see that those in the markets are making, they're making a lot of money. And I think that's what the minister was saying. But if these farmers are talking about scarcity or food security, I know that food security does not just involve what you see around here, but stockpile in case of any eventuality. You know, so it's a concern. But we cannot ignore the strides, say, efforts of the federal government, which is what I was trying to put to Nick to see what he will say, you know. But this is what it is. Nick Agulay, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. I don't know what happened, but it just went off. Unfortunately, let's just say that the network hasn't been very friendly and favorable for us this morning. So quickly, I also like us to look at some efforts because at the end of the day, whatever efforts that you have, whether from the federal government or the parts of the system, it's also geared towards ensuring food security. I know that donor agencies have responded in several ways just to help improve the standard of living, especially after, you know, we're not saying that conflicts, these communities are vulnerable, and there's been conflict in these areas and what have you, but how come we haven't really attained that level? How come we still have these complaints and reports that we're having, even with the response from donor bodies? We haven't attained the level of food efficiency which we'd have wanted. Neither have we developed the agricultural sector because governments are not giving any attention to this sector. Like I said in my opening remarks, agriculture should actually be Nigeria's mainstay of our economy because that is where we have the most comparative advantage. And so you see that government is not giving a due regard to this. Yes, like Kofi mentioned, the Syrians, Angkor, Boruwa scheme and all of that. Yes, they are good initiatives but what we're saying is that they are not enough. They are not unlocking the kind of value which you see in our agriculture. There's a video actually sent to Messi. You know, I wish I did it in time so that you will have it to show to viewers. It is a video captured as I was landing into Hitro Airport. I wanted to show Nigerians what agriculture is about because when you jump into the air in places like the UK, you are going to see four natural features on the ground. You will see a body of water, you will see a... Nick, I don't know what's up with the network but we can also show Nick the area of view as we do. The forest, you will see a settlement where they live. Let's just show what you see. Can you hear me? Yeah, Nick, listen, we'll also see for a second about your view. Yes, we can hear you. Please go. Okay, yes. So I will say that that video that I wanted to be shown to viewers, it shows that when you jump up in the air in a place like the UK, you are going to see only four natural features on the ground. One, body of water, two forest reserves, three in place where they live, a settlement, and the rest of the land in between these other three features is cultivated, totally cultivated. There is not a single land to these three features I have mentioned which is a settlement forest of water that is left on cultivated. You will see it in that video. Yeah, but Nick, if you descend, I would inquire to book a ticket to go to Podhakot. As you are descending, you're going to see a lot of farms descending into Podhakot. You will see all the largest palm oil plantations you could ever see. You know about it, Rizom palm, you know about it. Plus smallholder farms. I leave the Potakot, I have landed the Potakot. You will see those plantations. But what I'm saying is that that should not be the case all over Nigeria. But Nick, maybe our farms are not close to airports. I don't know. But you know, let's look at the history. Okay, let's look at the history. The output, national output of rice, according to CBN governor, Godwin Mephili, has moved from about 5.4 million metric tons in 2015 to over 9 million metric tons in 2021. Nick, in seven years under Buhari, we've seen effective collaboration between the farmer groups, the several of them, not just this one, talking and the federal government. And it's seen a significant improvement in productivity per hectare of the smallholder farmer from about 2.4 metric tons per hectare in 2015 to between 5 metric tons per hectare in 2021. You want to look at livestock production. Recent estimates in Nigeria's national head comprises of 18.4 million cattle for the 3.4 million sheep, 76 million goats, 180 million poultry. Okay, this is what we're looking at. And most of this, this is an improvement from what you had in the BS prior 2015 is what we're hearing from the federal government. So, I mean, are we not, you know, painting a gloomy picture, ignoring some of the little progress you've made? And that's my guess, improved my guess, but this is improvement of a student who was posting 5% performance and is not telling us I'm doing 10%. Still way below pass mark. You know, see the whole data that is being turned out now is being destroyed by the fact that Nigeria is still importing a significant quantum of food into this country. We should be, and we should be a food exporting country. Not a food importing country. Do you know I received a shocker of my life during this war in Ukraine? The shocker I received for my life is that they say because of the war in Ukraine with supply, wheat importing to Nigeria is affected, which I agreed. Because everybody knows that we are not cultivating enough wheat in Nigeria. But the one that shocked me was that the same vegetable supply to Nigeria is also affected. Vegetables, Nigeria, with this climate, with the population to do the agriculture, were importing vegetables from Ukraine. That is helpful. I mean, when people churn out this kind of data, they should understand that agriculture is a low-hugging food that we have refused to plug. When you go about the countryside, because I drive around the countryside, like today I'm leaving Abuja to go to Benwell, where I will go and vote, I will drive for five hours to the countryside. Do you see tractors? Do you see tractors on the farms? You see human beings bending down to tea there as well. Is that agriculture in the 21st century? This thing is before us. So we should be importing food. If this statistic that the CBN, a Minister of Agriculture is putting forward is true. Why are we having hunger in the country? But, Nick Agoule, as we cross this conversation down, we've had several programs, government-related programs to tackle food security or ensure efficiency in food security. I like you to respond to it. Over times, we've seen that they have failed. Once upon a time, we had the operation on Feed the Nation. I mean, you want to go on with some of these policies. There's also a recent one where about four months ago, the vice president has said that the special agro-industrial processing program will address food in security and create millions of jobs. That's in, you know, we're looking at about 2025, about 2030. Your thoughts. Why have some of these food-related programs failed over time? Very lofty ideas. And do you also think that the recent one would see the light of day? Yes, you are very correct. I may say that we've had this program, Operation Feed the Nation, I remember it. We also had Green Revolution. I remember that. And we have had all these programs over time. But they have not impacted on our farmers. Our farmers are still going to the farms, as to speak today, with their hosts and cut grasses in their hands, tilling the soil with their brute force. A farmer that does that could probably produce five bags of rice in a year. If that farmer was supported with tractors, with farm equipment, that same farmer would produce 500 bags of rice in a year. Imagine a farmer from five bags to even a hundred bags, even if he produces a hundred bags. You can see that that farmer's economic situation will change. He will change because he will not have a lot more money to take his own economy decision. We're not seeing these things. So we see data, but on the ground, we see nothing. Like I said, I travel through the countryside. I don't see mechanized agriculture that I see in the place for the UK. Yes, we cannot become the UK overnight. But what progress have we made? All these programs that you have visited, including the recent one, if you go to your village and ask your people in your village, who are farmers and say, have the government impacted you in any way? They will tell you the government has not impacted them. They have been left there. And another sad thing, let me tell you one thing, Messi, another sad thing is that when these farmers struggle and cultivate with their brute force energy, these crops, after they harvest the crops, they still lose a significant quantity of their harvest, post-harvest losses, because nothing is in place to process these products. Like if you go to Benway now, all the foods that have been produced, because all the foods will wrap in at the same time, they are rotten in a way. Because there is nothing to process them, turn them into juice or some sort of consecrate for local production or for export. So there's a lot of challenges that the government is not tackling. And so if the government job goes to tackle, even if a body has a cancer, then somebody's job went and treated you with panadol and it's going to the high heavens to shatter. I am treating this body and making progress. It's no progress at all. Giving us a heartfelt, you know, view right there and of course, giving us the situation in the UK, I hope we can play that video so that you can see. Yes, she sent it to us. We can see it right there. But I want us to look at, because I mean, if you must be fair, we look at the statistics that are available to us from statistic, which is, this is my favorite statistics or data source. It shows that the prevalence of severe food insecurity and I hope that we can display that on the screen for you guys to see. The prevalence of severe food insecurity in Nigeria from 2014 to 2020, one has actually gotten as increased, let's call it that. So they say from 2014 to 2016, we had the prevalence of food severe, severe food insecurity in the country was at 11% of the total population. 2015 to 2017, it was at 12.3% of the total population. 2016 to 2018, it was at 13.6% of the total population. 2017 to 2019, 15.1% of the population were experiencing severe food insecurity. And then we have 2018 to 2020, 17.3% and 2019 to 2021, 19.1%. So we can see from 2014 to last two years, it's been a progressive increase of severe food insecurity in the country. And of course, when you talk about food, you talk about hunger. If you look at the global hunger index, the APC guys will tell you that in 2017, hunger Nigeria was 84th out of about 121 countries in the global hunger index. But in 2022, if Nigeria was 84th in 2017, it's gotten worse because in 2022, Nigeria ranked 103 out of 121 countries where they had sufficient digital coagulates, the global hunger index. And this means that Nigeria has a level of hunger that is really serious. But tying that hunger to food sufficiency, we can do that all day. But let's look at the state governance. This fixation on the federal government when it comes to agriculture to me is worrying because Nigeria is so huge. I know the federal government is huge, but the state governments are the ones closest to the grassroots who have also a significant role to play. What's your assessment of the role the state governments should play in our plane in making Nigeria's food self-sufficient or food secure? I agree with you in total. And for most of the statistics that you have laid out now, totally destroys whatever efforts that the federal government thinks they are making that will still remain at the bottom ladder of food insecurity in the world. And I'll come back to the state government. That is a national government, both state and local governments. They're not doing enough at all. They're absolutely doing nothing. And for me, this is why I believe that the next parliament must do something about local government autonomy because the local governments are actually the government at the grassroots. They are the government at right there with the people, with the farmers. And if the local governments were empowered, the local governments will start large agricultural scheme like land clearing, tree crop planting and all of that. But the money that are made for local government, the state governments just seize this money, sit with it in the capitals and the judge tells you nothing about what happens to this money. So the governments are the sub-national level. There are two miracles that are talked to people about two miracles. Miracle number one, food tree cropping. All you need is open the ground and plant a tree. Then you go and sleep. The tree just begins to grow on its own, grow on its own, without you doing anything. What is the miracle number two? Miracle number two is that of the eight billion people in the world, almost all of them eat fruits in their raw state that they just pluck that fruit and they will eat it. They will eat a mango raw, eat an orange raw, a pineapple raw, a guava raw, a banana raw. So in Nigeria, all we need to do is that we should just be opening the ground and planting trees, tree crops. And then when they start fruiting, we just pluck them and send them abroad and they send us the dollars. We don't even bother about processing in the first instance. Until we start making enough money, then we sell it to a processing plant. This can be done easily. Why is it not happening? Because the government is not giving the support. Well, I think that it's time where we begin to look at solutions to all of this. You are very vast and you understand the dynamics of agriculture and our government and what we're struggling with. So yes, what exactly do you think that we can do? We can engage. First of all, we take it in different strata in terms of policy formulation and implementation from the government angle. And then we come to individuals and corporate bodies or the private sector. How can we engage to ensure food security in Nigeria? I thank you very much for that question. And this is an agenda that we are now setting for the incoming government. So what are the solutions? The solution will come from the problems. What are the problems right now? The first problem now is that farmers are facing insecurity and they've been driven into GDP camps. The next government should immediately assure security for farmers to return to their farms, even under these conditions that they are cultivating in subsistence. Yes, let me go to that video. I will return to the point we are making. That is me landing a hydro airport. What you see in that picture is, like now in the immediate space, now you will see a forest. They have reserved a forest where nobody will cut the trees. You will see settlements, you will see water bodies, check between all those three features. The land that is available is cultivated. You can see those farms totally cultivated. And the thing there is that one farm can be a crop farm, the next farm can be an animal farm. Animal farm and crop farms could exist side by side without anybody monitoring anybody. That's the thing you see. And what you see here is all over the country. You can fly from the south of the UK to the north, east and west. This is what you are going to see. Every available land cultivated. Just imagine that you fly from Sokoto to Lagos or from Medugri to Kalaba, from Elori to Adamawa. All over Nigeria, we have cultivated our land like this. There will no longer be job insecurity because there will be so much jobs for people to do. There will be no full security. We will not even have a foreign exchange crisis because the monies that we are using to go and import food, we will not be exporting food and making dollars out of it and developing our nation. And then the processing plants will be there to add value to this thing. So this is what I'm saying. So back to the point that we're making messy, the solutions are going to come from the problem. So we talked about insecurity. That has to be dealt with immediately by the incoming conference so that farmers can be returned back to where their farms are. Then number two, the output per farmer is so abysmally low because these farmers are cultivating with their waste, with their brute energy. We need to put schemes in place where farmers can rent agricultural machinery, use it to cultivate their farms. And when they harvest, they now pay back to this fund, the quantum of time they use for the machinery. Then we need to have a processing and plantings in Nigeria so that post harvest losses are curtailed. Then we need to make agricultural export easy. We know people who say, I want to export yam, I want to export this. And the whole shenanigans that happen at the port that frustrates people from exporting instead of government agencies facilitating export. These kind of things need to be there. And then we need the government to come in with the legal framework that governs all these things. If you have a country where there is a crisis about the president disobeying court orders, a national assembly going one way, governors going the other way, Supreme Court going the other way, it doesn't all go away for investors. In their mind they're thinking, I cannot carry my money to a place like that. So all that have to be there to it so that money can come in to develop agriculture in Nigeria. Agriculture is actually our greatest endowment. Our greatest endowment is agriculture. Nick, one of the ways to really scale up, scale up the agriculture sector in the country, of course, you look at maybe fertilizer for instance. We have some plants that have come or dango taste coming up. Another one is using science and technology to make better yields, faster yields, bigger yields, higher yields, disease resistant crop species and all that. Last week I was having a conversation on radio and a couple of the listeners was talking about healthy lifestyle, which has a eating and some of them expressed concern about the beans that they buy from the market these days and that they said when they were growing up some years ago you don't cook beans. They said it takes them a long time to cook that beans. It took a long time because beans is really hard. But they said these days when they cook the beans, it's at least people in Lagos, within some minutes it gets done, soft, and they think something is wrong. I probably thinking about the genetically modified beans that the government was trying to introduce and do some studies on and all that. What are your thoughts on using GM beans to improve agricultural yield? Are you in favor of that? Because some people are against it while some people look at the benefits. You talk about Moussanto and all these other establishments who are really powerful. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I'm not a scientist. So I was trying to be corrected by scientists but I believe that any scientific development that is coming, we shouldn't just reject it on the first value. We should allow scientists to look into it and then government regulatory agencies should be able to examine it. And if they feel that food that is produced through GM beans is fit for human consumption, so be it. But if they have any issues with that, then they should ban it. But in Nigeria, God has just blessed us so well because our land is so fertile that you know, let me give you an example. I'm from Benway, but I went to university in Benay. But the first time I traveled to the Denbender state and noticed that unlike in Benway where we make heaps first before we plant yam, those guys would just open the ground, put a yam seedling inside and it will produce humongous tubers of yam. That is how fertile our soil is and we have a good climate to match. So even with that GM, Nigeria can still produce high quality of food. And that takes me to another point that you raised. Research work. You see, we have a university in Makode. It was called University of Agriculture. I thought that that was a university that was meant to undertake research and improve on what the farmers are doing so that instead of planting yam once a year, they can do research, make farmers to harvest yam twice a year, harvest rice three times a year, bring improved seedlings so that the yield will increase. That university hasn't done anything like that. Farmers are still tilling the soil and harvesting yam once. In fact, I now realize that the university actually now went and got a license to change them from a university of agriculture to a conventional university where they are now offering accounting, economics and all of those kind of things. So that is an area that government need to focus attention on. We need to fund research properly. Government needs to take care. There are so many agricultural research institutes in Nigeria. What are they doing? They need to come up with products that will make farmers yield higher, that will make farmers harvest more frequently and will make, you know, if you go to a place like Israel, I went to Israel. In Israel, you see there are oranges now. The orange will not even be one feet high yet. It will stop producing. It will stop making fruits. That's the kind of thing we need in Nigeria so that we can begin to unlock value from this fetus where God has given us. Oh. You remind me of the international institute of tropical agriculture, which you have in different parts of the country. Think spread around parts of, I know there's one in Onne, Port Hakot and they have fantastic species of different kinds of crops and plants and sometimes people don't take advantage of these things. I don't know. I remember Nick some years ago under previous administration when the PDP was in power when they were trying to give some soft loans to farmers, people who had politicians and government officials including their brothers, their sisters, their children, people who had no experience even planting anything in the soil. And then they went for these loans and the rest is history. So we also have a role to play in all of this, you know. These opportunities are there. People need to take advantage of so that they can also grow the economy. Well, I think that this is the point where we probably have to just course this conversation down now. Nekha Gulay, thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you very much. My last message to Nigerians. Today is Monday, the 20th of February. Five days time, in five days we're going to the presidential polls. All of these that we're discussing and come down to leadership, is the right leadership that will give a due attention to agriculture that will create jobs for our graduates. So if you're a young person, you're at home right now, you don't have a job. You have been carrying your city up and down. Go and make your voice heard on Saturday so that we let leaders that we unlock value in this country and you will get that job and you will begin to build your own family and all of that. This thing lies in the ballot box. So please, let us go on Saturday. All of us, don't be afraid of insecurity. The chief of the first staff has told us that this will be one of the most peaceful elections in Nigeria. They have it all together. And also know that the Electoral Law 2022 now safeguards our votes. Once you cast your vote, your vote will never be changed. It will come for the result. Thank you, Nigerians. Let's do this. So you're not concerned about an interim national government, maybe some sort of talk of the military stepping in, like Erufai said, you're not concerned about that. Well, if the chief of the first staff says that he in conjunction with the Nigerian police, which is a frontline security outfit for the elections, and other security agencies are going to give protection to us, then we better hear him. Is it not better that we break the insecurity threat and go and vote and sit in your house and still be kicked by bandits or be kidnapped on the train or sit in the church at the Satinobu and still be killed? Thank you so much, Nika Gule. We do appreciate your time. And of course, we look forward to having you on other national and critical issues. Do have a good day. Thank you so much. I have a nice day. All right. Merci. Thank you, Nika. Have you done some farming before? Don't tell me you're in school. That one is not farming. Have you done some farming before? I got farmland. Have you not own? Have you done farming? Yes. I mean, for every time I spent with my grandmother, definitely you have to go to the farm. You have to go to the farm? What did you do at the farm? I climbed the trees. You climbed the trees? I can see. All right. But you do plants. You just climb the trees and have fun. I have a step. You don't want to be arrested. I planted corn, planted cassava, maybe accidentally planted watermelon. And been around them planting, what do you call it again, carrots and groundnuts. I love agriculture. I have a step, groundnuts. Okay, you just didn't have a step. That's your role. What I did was very criminal. But we have to move on. I have a step, groundnuts. I mean, my grandmother was very passionate about the farm. Wow. She means you have it in you? I don't know what you're waiting for. No, I don't have it in me. Because I think that for every other time we fought about it, we struggled, it was always a fight. And for every time you take me to the farm, I would disappear. You'd never see me. Wow, you just decide. So I only return when we have to go back. Go back, I see. I mean, we love farming. We have to go, but I think we use it for everyone out there. Don't wait for the government to tell you to make money. There's a lot of opportunity in agriculture. And I think every young person out there who's doing a great job, let's find a piece of land in a very fertile place and start farming. And you make your money. My name is Kofi Bartels. Follow us on our social media platforms. We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Plus TV Africa. When you get there, follow us, like us, subscribe, share, comment. We have a second YouTube account. Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. My name is Kofi Bartels. Once again, good morning. Well, join the newsroom at nine o'clock for the news brief. I am Massey Bookwell. Have a fantastic Monday morning.