River Basin Development Authorities And Food Security

Any student of the role of food security in nation­al development must be alarmed by what is hap­pening now in Nigeria. The role of food security in national survival should be clear to Nigerians now, unless of course, we have learnt no lessons from the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War. Apart from the chronic lack of arms and ammunition, it was the debilitating hunger which had engulfed Biafra which did the rebel enclave in. Yet, if the lessons from the Nigerian Civil War have been forgotten because Nigeria lacks institutional memory, the way the runaway food inflation has been messing up the national economy is not only worthwhile but recent, too.

Agricultural productivity and food security are so essential to national development that the time being wasted before the newly ap­pointed management teams of the 12 River Basin Development Au­thorities are inaugurated appears like self-betrayal.

The management teams were appointed on December 18th, 2024. Yet, by 19th of February, 2025, the members of those River Basin Development Authorities had not been issued their letters of appoint­ment and they had not been inau­gurated. Why that is so remains the most troubling unanswered question from the entire Nigeria in decades. This is because the role of the River Basin Development Au­thorities in ensuring that Nigeria enhances her food security first for national survival and second for sustainable national development cannot be over-emphasized.

Setting up of the River Basin De­velopment Authorities has been one of the most emphatic steps Nigeria has ever taken towards her march to food security. This is because that step showcased Nigeria’s determina­tion to leap from subsistence farm­ing dependence to a modern way of farming. The River Basin Develop­ment Authorities have the task of making Nigeria to embrace the most modicum system of modern farm­ing. This is because the Authorities own the responsibility of building dams in the needed areas to make large expanses of land truly arable. With water profusely available from the dams, farmers should have water for irrigation of their farms so that all sorts of grains and vegetables could be cultivated both during the rain and dry seasons. This alone, if well-handled, should be the real game changer needed to make Ni­geria West Africa’s agricultural hub.

Just as every primary six school pupil knows, ancient Egypt was a gift of the River Nile because that river provided the needed irriga­tion and fertile soil that made ag­riculture productive enough to sus­tain the growth and development which saw old Egypt become a won­der of the ancient world. So, too, were the River Basin Development Authorities planned to jump-start an agricultural revolution in Nige­ria. And that was no mere dream; the River Basin Development Au­thorities have under their control the greatest expanse of fertile land in the country waiting to be uti­lized to bring about food security in Nigeria and to make the country West Africa’s bread basket.

Most of all, the geographical map and essentially spread of the River Basins ensure that the en­tire nation, from East to West and North to South, is covered in that web of specially planned and ex­pertly executed plot to put rivers that Nigeria has been blessed with, including her vast wetlands, at the service of our dear motherland.

To further make the River Ba­sin Development Authorities more effective, they do not form a stand-alone island in the stream but are cumulatively related to, and are even supervised by the Federal

Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation. The good thing here is that the 12 RBDAs are un­der the purview of the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation. This minister and the ministry should, in Nigeria’s interest, step up to the needed task and end whatever is the cause for debili­tating lacuna which has resulted from the non-inauguration of the management teams of the RBDAs in December 2024.

Writing this article in the last phase of February 2025, it is wor­risome that the management teams President Bola Tinubu appointed on 18th December, 2024 have not yet taken office effectively to begin to steer Nigeria towards that dream paradise – sustainable food security. Until this is done and the manage­ment teams begin to function prop­erly, a lot will remain wrong with Nigeria’s food production chain. It is not only that the plans already on ground in the various RBDAs would be allowed to grow stale, new ones would not be minted. And when you add the number of members of staff that would have no activities to pursue, the dams that would not be maintained, the farmlands that would be deteriorat­ing, you would know that Nigeria is sinking further and further into a food production morass which only the functioning management team in each of the RBDAs would stem.

Unfortunately, as nature abhors a vacuum, the absence of a man­agement team to direct the affairs of each RBDA would allow despera­does to engage in assorted kinds of disruptive actions, from corruption to a nasty resort to disruptive pro­tests for all sorts of reasons.

The Honourable Minister should urgently address the need for alle­viating the problems facing the RB­DAs now, by doing all in his power to establish a more effective organi­zational framework, especially by ensuring that the new management teams are inaugurated immediate­ly. At stake here is, first of all, the agricultural goals which President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has set for himself.

There is no belabouring the point that any outfit without a substantive Managing Director is in trouble as the acting head’s abil­ity to operate optimally is limited. This limitation may hinder the achievement of Mr. President’s set goals, and this will ultimately make Nigeria a much famished country.

…Eluemunor lives in Abuja