From Tom Garba, Yola
The essence of the Agricultural Anchor Borrowers Project may be defeated due to controversy rocking the take-off of the scheme in Adamawa state.
Investigations revealed that most of the real farmers were not captured in the beneficiary list by the state Government. Rather, those manning the sector are busy forming fictitious groups and associations to cover their illegality.
Expressing his disappointment on the development Acting Secretary in charge of North East of the National Association of Rice Farmers, Alhaji Abdullahi Tafida, lamented that if not addressed, implementation of the Anchor Borrowers Progamme in the state would soon collapse.
Tafida, in an interview with journalists in Yola, accused those handling the programme of sabotaging it due to political interest, noting that the programme may not see the light of the day.
He observed that improper implementation will advance total failure, decrying the claim that government had politicised the Anchor Borrowers scheme to the extent that the genuine farmers were not being captured.
Tafida said: “The problem is the way and manner the project is implemented in the state because it looks like there is so much political and personal interests in it.
He stated further that the implementation of the programme particularly for dry season rice farming was too late and majority of those registered and involved were not genuine farmers
“Most of the beneficiaries are political sympathizers who have nothing to do with farming, in fact they have started selling the agricultural inputs given to them to the marketers,’’ Tafida alleged
Tafida who is the immediate past state chairman of the association, challenged government to be realistic and transparent in all its programmes for the development of the state, stressing that in the seven front line dry and raining season rice farming areas of Fufore, Yola South, Yola North, Girei, Demsa, Numan and Lamurde, genuine farmers were not captured in the programme.
He suggested to the government to deal always with genuine registered farmers for raining season farming for successful implementation of Anchor Borrowers raining season project.
Responding, Dr Umar Bindir, the Secretary to the State Government and Co-Chairman Anchor Borrowers team, said that the allegation sounded like handiwork of mischief makers aimed at painting the government in bad light.
Bindir who replied the text message sent to his mobile phone on the development, wrote: “This sounds like we are very bad people and chairman of rice farmers association in the state is a full member of the Anchor Borrowers committee. All chairmen of other commodity Associations are members of the committee, they can all confirm what we do in the committee.”
Adamawa is among the rice producing states in the country. In March, government and other stakeholders of the project flagged off implementation of the programme in the state.
No fewer than 3,000 dry season rice farmers received agricultural inputs worth millions of naira for rice production.
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