We should all be worried about what we consume | 5 takeaways from Nigeria’s yam crisis

On Thursday, the House of Reps during its plenary session opened up an investigation into the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and a number of other agencies, all who are involved in the exportation of yam tubers.

The lawmakers raised concerns about two major issues. First, yam tubers belonged to the list of food produce that are prohibited from exportation and secondly, the poor quality of the tubers that made it for export and the embarrassment that followed their rejection on the international market.

The House of Reps’ belated decision to swing into action and the Ministry of Agriculture’s misguided endeavour makes it hard to blame any single party so here are the takeaways from Nigeria’s unfortunate yam situation.

  1. Our lawmakers are not proactive

It is not the first time legislators in both chambers of the National Assembly have exhibited a reactionary attitude to matters of concern such as this, leaving one confused as to what they spend their working hours discussing. In June 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture provided clarifications to its Yam Export Programme in a Twitter thread. Agriculture Minister, Audu Ogbeh was all over the news promoting the programme while iterating its potential benefit to the country, in terms of earning. As far as we know, the programme was Ogbeh’s pet project and he failed at hiding his hope in Nigeria’s yam export. The question now is, how did the House of Reps miss all these? Coming at this time sword in hand proves just how inattentive the Nigerian legislature is.

2. Lawmakers have failed at their oversight functions

We can generally agree that if the reps had effectively carried out the oversight functions for which they were elected, this yam export issue may not have degenerated into the national embarrassment that it is now. In a sane society, a government agency, ministry, department or any branch of the Executive would not have gone as far as implementing a policy that opposes a section of the law without the slightest knowledge of the legislature. The monitoring and supervision of the executive sits at the core of their legislative functions and once again, it’s an F.

3. Audu Ogbeh is caught in a bad situation

The Minister of Agriculture is clearly invested in this Yam Export thing and you can’t blame the man. In a country that has for decades being solely dependent on crude oil export, it behoves the agriculture minister to work tirelessly towards delivering on the promise to diversify the economy.

Minister Ogbeh draws a lot of inspiration from Ghana. “If nearby Ghana that does not grow anywhere near one tenth of the yams we grow, is targeting USD4bn in yam exports, we can do better”, was a constant line of reasoning that constantly resurfaced in the thick of the conversation. But maybe Ghana did their homework.

If the minister and other parties involved are unaware of the content of Nigeria’s export list, then they should all take the fall for not researching the intricacies of their jobs.

4. We should all be very worried

In all of our desperation to ship our yam to foreign countries, one would have assumed our offering would be of great quality. But it turns out we have bad yams and it took “the abroad people” to point that out.

How do we all come in? If our yam export was rejected for low quality, why then aren’t we boycotting yam consumption already for the same reasons. Our lives are worth just as much. The House pointed out that it would question the safety of food approved for local consumption by the relevant MDAs and we say that is a very legitimate endeavour since these people are trying to kill us all.

5. Make Nigerian yams great again

It would be of immense benefit to Nigerians, the economy and those who crave our yam outside the country if the government now invests in empowering local farmers to grow quality yams, provide durable storage facilities, fix transportation problems and ensure rural-urban connections are fluid, among other things.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail