PROSPECT FOR THE NEW PRESIDENT IN AGRICULTURAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION I

PREAMBLE
Nigeria had never lack policy initiation and formulation .What we sincerely and genuinely lack is aggressive policy implementation not only in Agricultural sector but in all sectors of the Nigerian economy.

The Agricultural policy of the Administration of the Late President Umaru YarAdua (May his gentle and saintly soul rest in perfect peace with Allah) was encapsulated and very well articulated in the NEEDS-2 document. The agricultural aspect of his Seven points Agenda was simple and very easy to implement if the technocrats who are responsible for translating formulated policies into realities are sincere and patriotic enough to discern that they are holding very sensitive positions that will save millions of Nigerians from a life time of penury. If the technocrats want to blame their Political heads,i.e. the Ministers who had been supervising them, while did they come up with a grandiose tactical plan for implementing agricultural policies in September,2009 and not September,2007 shortly after the new Administration came to power and there had already been the NEEDS-2 and Seven Points agenda available to them for translating to execution in 2008.Or is it a problem of synergy r lack of cooperation between the Ministry of National planning and the professionals in Professional ministry. the new president should find out the best way to get the top civil servants to be cooperating with themselves because it is still possible for him to achieve a lot before May 2011.he should just cancel all leaves for his top civil servants and get them to achieve targets set for them. These targets should be what he discusses with them at the weekly meetings of the Federal Executive Councils and not pleasantry because the level of poverty in the nation is not acceptable at all anywhere. he could still be a Nigerian hero by putting the right people in the right positions after satisfying the usual national culture of federal character principle. Whoever in his team that is not performing should be replaced by external consultants to be directly supervised from the presidency. The meat of what had happened in the past four years in the Agricultural sector is stated below.

Highlight of the Agricultural policy are as follows:
Situational Analysis
The fundamental value of agriculture in the development and growth of the Nigerian economy is indicated in its contributions as source of food and raw materials for agro-industrial processing and the linkage effects with employment, income, market opportunities for industrial output and reduction in poverty. Agriculture is expected to form the fulcrum for the growth of the economy because it houses the bulk of the labour force and has prospects for development by its sheer size and spread.However, while agricultural growth has shown remarkable improvement with yearly contribution of nearly 6% to the gross domestic product, poverty remains endemic and pervasive in the sector. The paradox of growth without poverty reduction in agriculture and rural sector in general raises doubt about the efficacy of agricultural and rural development policies pursued over the years. Also, inspite of consistent growth in the agricultural sector in recent years, the sector is not yet performing to its optimum potential in terms of foreign exchange generation.