Few days ago, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale announced the approval of President Bola Tinubu for the appointment of Mohammed Abu Ibrahim as the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Development Fund. Mohammed is the son of Senator Abu Ibrahim.
Although, it may well be within the rights of the President to appoint the son of Senator Abu Ibrahim, one of his closest friend into his government, just like we saw with the now reversed appointment of Engr. Imam Kashim Imam, son of Kashim Ibrahim Imam to serve as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), what is of more concern is whether these “sons” so appointed are qualified or have the requisite experience for the offices they are being appointed into. Engr. Imam Kashim Imam, who is said to be 25 years old just finished his National Youth Service in 2022, yet he was appointed by the President. The same thing is what we are seeing with the appointment of Mohammed Abu Ibrahim as the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agricultural Development Fund. Although Mohammed has years of experience, his experience is not within what the Act setting up the National Agricultural Development Fund stipulated.
According to part III 10 (2) of the Act, the Executive Secretary shall possess cognate experience in any of the following disciplines of (a) agricultural finance ; (b) economics ; or (c) agricultural policy formulation and implementation. On the contrary, Mohammed is a trained accountant and a serial entrepreneur. While he may have had some experience in banking and finance, Agricultural finance is a different ball game entirely and the act which specifies this as a cognate experience did not put it there for no reason. Mohammed’s sojourn in the founding of a data analytics company and his establishment of an Agric Tech company is not enough cognate experience as far as Agriculture Finance, Economics or Agricultural policy and implementation are concerned.
For what it’s worth, one even wonders why the current Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, Dr Gazali Muhammed Abubakar, who has organized the Agency since ir was established cannot be allowed sometime to see through what he has started before a new replacement is made. Dr Gazali was only just appointed in May, 2023, after the bill establishing the fund was signed into law in December, 2022. Since assuming office, Dr Gazali has set up the structure of the agency to enable it carry out the mandate of serving as a financial intervention institution to support strategic aspects of the sector’s development towards meeting up with the inadequate funding of the agriculture sector. Having done this within the short space of time he was appointed, it would have been best to allow him fully kick off the work in terms of implementation of the purpose it was set up before a new person is brought in.
Dr Gazali has not only started on a very strong footing in the agency, he is well qualified for the job. He is a trained professional Banker, with interest in Agricultural Development Finance, having worked for more than 18 years in the Nigerian banking and finance industry. He was a Product Development Specialist in Development Finance Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). He was also the Secretary to the CBN Rice Champions under the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP) aimed at revitalizing the agriculture and food sustainability for the country. Dr Gazali served as the Senior Special Adviser to the Managing Director of Nirsal Microfinance Bank, a National microfinance Bank, created by the CBN/Bankers Committee to implement some policies for intervention in Agricultural Value-Chain. He has over the time acquired high-level experience in development finance, financial inclusion, digital financial services and financial management.
Dr. Gazali is exposed to policy development and regulation particularly for interventions in the agriculture and real sector of the Nigerian economy. He is directly involved in developing the technical inputs on development finance into the monetary policy decisions of the CBN and also developing government interventions in specific areas of the economy in line with the Government’s policy direction.
For someone who is already within the Agricultural finance and Agricultural policy and implementation circle and has good knowledge of what plays within the sector, President Bola Tinubu should give him more time to fully establish the agency.