SEE RESPONSES ABEG,......Will reducing civil servants’ working days boost food production?

• See the responses from people abeg
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• Kabir Ibrahim (National President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria)

The governors are wasting their time on things that are not necessary. First, how would the affected civil servants be effective in their official responsibilities when their attention is divided? While on the farms, their official duties would suffer. Reducing the working days of civil servants does not make any economic sense. And that would amount to a loss to the states.

There are many other things the states should do to boost agriculture. They could subsidise farming inputs to make them affordable. Nigerian farmers are facing serious challenges because they cannot afford the machinery required for mechanised farming. A state government could make necessary tools available to farmers.

They could also encourage farmers to form clusters and assist them to acquire modern tools. Imo State Government, for instance, could divide the state into three zones and set up centres where farmers from different zones could hire equipment. With a little amount of money, the farmers should be able to hire tractors. That would boost the economy of the state.

The state governments should also take extension services seriously. Farmers need to be educated in modern farming technology.

There are several other things the governors could do to encourage agriculture in their states. But giving civil servants some days off is certainly not among what people expect from them. It does not make any economic sense. The civil servants must not be physically involved in their farming activities? That is not necessary. Most people who are into farming are not physically involved.

• Dr. Godwin Owoh (Executive Chairman, Society for Analytical Economics, Nigeria)

There is nothing new in what the governors have done. The regulations of the civil service encourage civil servants to combine their core professional callings with their official jobs. For instance, those who are lawyers can practise law and teach at the same time. Doctors can also teach while rendering medical consultancy at the same time.

In the same vein, civil servants could engage in farming without necessarily giving up their primary jobs. But using the existing practice to outsmart labour leaders in their agitation for better working conditions is not acceptable.

The government cannot use this avenue to reduce the number of hours public workers are statutorily bound to put into their jobs. In Nigeria, civil servants are expected to work between 8am and 4pm, from Monday to Friday. It is statutory.

Before the governors can reduce the number of working days or hours, the relevant labour laws must be amended, but states do not have the power to do so. This is because labour-related issues are on the exclusive list. The National Assembly must amend the labour laws before the governors can reduce the number of hours of working days of the civil servants in their states.

So, it is illegal for anybody to reduce the working days of civil servants when the existing laws on the issue have not been amended.

Many people have farms in their places of residence. But that should not stop anybody from carrying out their official job.

Interestingly, what the governors actually want to achieve with the policy is to reduce the salary budgets of their states. But they have failed to cut the real waste. Reducing wages would not make a reasonable difference in public expenditure because it is small compared to other areas the states waste their resources on.

• Shedrack Madlion (Group Managing Director, Safari 54 Farms Limited)

Giving civil servants some days off would not address the real challenges facing Nigeria’s agricultural sector. The government needs to address the fundamental challenges facing the sector.

For the first time, a bag of 50kg bag of rice is selling for N20,000. This should send a clear signal to the government that there is trouble in the land. Unfortunately, we are not tackling the real issues.

For instance, what has Imo State Government done to develop the value chain of the palm oil produced in the state? Has it considered setting up a processing centre where farmers in the state can process palm oil? Every community in that state has a comparative advantage in one agricultural produce or the other. Rather than giving the civil servants some days off, the government should assist farmers in the state to harness the potential in their localities.

The entire country does not have up to 40,000 functional tractors. Some small towns in India have more tractors than the entire Nigeria. What has the government done about that?

• Chief Tunde Badmus (Ex-President, Poultry Association of Nigeria/Chairman, TUNS FARMS)

I don’t see the need for the policy because it would be tantamount to putting the cart before the horse. What the governors need to do first is to develop policies in line with the agric potential of their states. When you give workers some days off to practise farming without you showing direction, they would just go home and sit down, doing nothing. When you tell workers to stay at home and farm, are they going to plant maize or cassava at this period? Have you provided the land on which they are going to plant? If you want them to go into poultry production, where are the birds? Kebbi has a policy on rice, maize and poultry productions. Also, Osun has a policy on poultry production, where government invests in you by giving you the feeds and birds. You pay later after you’ve sold your products.

The governors could feel that many of our civil servants sit down in our ministries daily, doing nothing. May be that’s why they are coming up with this idea, but there should be a well-thought-out policies.

• Wale Oyekoya (Chairman, Agriculture and Non-Oil Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry)

I appreciate policies that can be sustained. If a serving governor changes a civil service rule to encourage agriculture, what happens to the policy when he leaves the office? There is no guarantee that the policy would be sustained by his successor.

Asking civil servants to take some days off to work on their farms is against the civil service rules. But the governors that have made such pronouncements used their powers to bend the rule, which is not right.

Apart from its illegality, the policy would not yield any positive result. What would happen to the operations of the states if the civil servants are encouraged to abandon their duty posts to go to farms?

I am an advocate of family farming. I believe everybody can participate in agriculture through family farming. A lawyer, doctor or public servant can go into family farming. All they need to do is to convert the spaces around their houses to farms.

The government should know that it is not everybody that is interested in farming. The two days Benue and Imo state governments have given to civil servants would go to waste. And that would make the civil servants unproductive.

Rather, the government should encourage the existing farmers and motivate jobless youths to go into farming.

There are many issues the governors have not clarified. Do they want the civil servants to go into farming as a hobby or as a business? If they want to do it as a business, what is the arrangement for marketing and processing? Where would they get seedlings? Why don’t they collect the statistics of those who are interested in farming and give them the tools they need?

The governors should rather think of how to develop the value chain of what is produced in their states rather than creating emergency farmers.

• Dr. Biodun Adedipe (Chief Consultant, B. Adedipe Associates Limited)

The first thing we need to understand in terms of managing an economy that is in a recession is that the government has to be pragmatic. It should not be business as usual. You need to source for solutions using unconventional methods. What the governors are doing is not new. The United Kingdom, the United States and other countries also encourage their people to take advantage of different opportunities during economic downturns.

I see the decision of the governors as a pragmatic way of addressing the challenges facing the country. First, many people are idle. I do not see how somebody who has not earned salaries for months would work at optimally level in their offices.

Historically, agriculture has been the highest contributor to our Gross Domestic Product. Hence, it is an area we need to boost to diversify the economy. I think the decision would help the economy if other governors consider it.

Also, the policy is not entirely new in Nigeria. In the late1970s, there was a similar effort to encourage civil servants to go into farming. The essence of the rested Operation Feed the Nation policy was to encourage everybody to go into farming. People were encouraged to own gardens at the back of their houses. The whole idea was to make the people to see the potential in agriculture. If every Nigerian pays attention to agriculture, the economy would benefit.