The Chancellor and founder of the Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, Prof Gregory Iyke Ibe has challenged the Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele to come out with proof that South -East business people does not apply for Central bank loans for the growth of their agricultural and other businesses.
He stated this while interacting with a team of All Facts Newspapers management, who were in his Uturu, Isuikwuato LGA office, seeking his views on the economic woes of the and Country and the way forward.
The Abia State born Professor of Entrepreneurial studies spoke on various issues of state and national need, and stated among other things that CBN has not been fair to the people of South East who have been trying to grow their agricultural businesses and creation of employment to their youths.
In a recent press statement issued by the Central Bank Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, he was quoted as saying that South East people do not apply for loans to grow their businesses, is there any truth to this statement?
No ! Absolutely no! What he said in that press release was a blatant storytelling; it was aimed at discrediting the South East people, so that if there is a perceived injustice done towards the South East people, the apex bank exonerate themselves from all blames. They will say that South Easterners are the ones hindering themselves from benefiting from CBN loans. My reasons are obvious, because we, in Songhai farms have applied for that loan to be able to develop the Songhai initiative, and in our request, nobody gave us. We applied through bank of industry, bank of Agriculture, and nobody attended to us. His final pronouncement was that the money was kept for Healthcare institutions, so how can he say that South Easterners are not applying ?.
Do you have any proof to what you are saying now?
There are lots of proofs, and we are ready to present documentations to prove what we are saying. You know that the South Eastern people are more inclined to do any agricultural venture to make sure that they feed their people. One thing that is clear is that as long as the Igbo business men and women are put through struggle to get loan for importation of goods, prices of goods will continue to be on increase. If Emefiele can “really call himself an Igbo man, though he is from Delta, he should so far publish the names of South East business people he has succeeded in helping to secure the CBN loans. I wonder why CBN will enact a policy that will restrict South Eastern business people, who have between 30 to 40% of the money in Lagos, more in Aba and Onitsha Should be barred from exporting goods or sending more than ten thousand dollars for their import /export businesses because they don’t have bureau de change business, “and these are the people that have chains of businesses scattered all over Nigeria and abroad.
How did you react to the information when you learnt of it ?
When I learnt of it , I reached out to most bankers I tried to process the loan with, and they said that “ CBN was only playing to gallery so that if there is any perceived injustice against the people of the South-East geo-political zone ,the CBN will exonerate itself making it look like the people of South East deliberately ignored the loan . Yes! We went round and round, nobody gave us loan when we wanted to expand Songhai farms. All our efforts met strict resistance. So trying to blame South-East people, who are more business oriented and more business inclined, amounts to playing to gallery, as some staff of the banks said.
The problem of most youths is how to raise fund, bank loans are not accessible especially if you are from South East, yet, the Central bank Governor want to heap the blame on South-Easterners, do you agree with that?
The governor should publish the facts of his claim, he should give information of those who applied for the loan and were not denied . Such a statement is a blatant story-telling, Gregory University through the Songhai Initiative applied for the CBN loan through designated financial institutions and all ended in futility. CBN under Emefiele’s watch reduced the NISRAL Loan from 50 million Naira to 5 million when people from the South East, whom I have guided on how to invest started trying to access the loan. The CBN is deliberately undermining South East people.
You said that Agriculture remains part of the solution to the country’ unemployment challenge, why do you say so?
I strongly believe that it is the only way out for our youths unemployment challenges. I have advised severally that the people of South East should embrace agriculture because it is a better option through which we can tackle the problem of unemployment. It is cheaper to run agricultural business than any other business. We have students here, who are learning agriculture practically and are at the same time producing what could be consumed and sold. If, for example the government get one million youths, train them in Agriculture by providing them with mechanized tools and processing agricultural machines, take them to a place like Ikwuano where there are cocoa plants, there won’t be any need for exports, because these cocoa seeds can be processed into chocolate bars and candies which can be used for other manufacturing needs. If this is replicated across the South-East zones and Abia in particular, the geo-political zone will become a beehive of economic activities .
You talk so authoritatively, like one experienced in the field of Agriculture.
As an academia cum entrepreneur, I have made huge investments in agriculture and I have received very huge result from the investment, I doubt if there is any other investment that can give you the type of yield Agriculture can give to you.
What crops can someone actually invest on that can give the kind of reward you are talking about?
Take a place like Okigwe, as an example, due to the availability of cashew nuts, Indians come to gather the nuts, moved them to the South-West, from there to their country where they have factories that process it and turn them into wonderful products. Is it not due to lack of processing industries in the state like Abia, that they are daily moved out and the IGR which the state would have received is denied them. We are losing revenue that is accruable to the state and our people of Isuikwuato who have large quantities of these cashew nuts are also loosing because we don’t have a processing plant here.
Is there any country that can fully depend on Agriculture for survival ?
I have been to a country like Guinea-Bisseau as an ECOWAS Consultant, and that experience made me to understand that the country depends on cashew and rice as a source of revenue to run the government . I keep wondering why Abia, as a State cannot use up to three or four locations across the state to invest in agriculture. I was forced to pay farmers in Benue state to produce garri which was shared across Abia State during the lockdown, necessitated by COVID-19 due to the absence of a cassava processing facility in Abia.
Many who hear you will wonder why, as an investor, who has the capacity to invest, has not invested in this area ?
I have tried to get the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to build 250 tons of cassava processing plant in Abia State but to no avail. Sometime ago, I went to Enugu tried to convince Senator Ike Eweremadu while he was the deputy senate –president, to build such plant but that effort did not yield any result.
The governor of Rivers State, Chief Barr. Nyesom Wike built such a processing plant in his state and today the result is wonderful. It is the type of investment a state government should embark upon. If we establish plant that processes cassava to ethanol or to starch, the beer people drink contains starch produced from cassava and the starch ingredient is imported by these manufacturing companies due to non-availability of that product in sufficient quantity in Nigeria. Anyone who goes into that area of business of producing starch to feed breweries will make a lot of money in Nigeria.
Besides starch, is there any other product that one can get from cassava that will be of international standard and economically beneficial to the manufacturers?
I can assure you that China is today producing cassava flakes, a type of garri, which they export to other countries like the United States and thereby providing huge revenue for their country and people. Do you even know that most of the Cat-fish consumed in Nigeria are produced in Thailand and shipped in containers to Nigeria, which cost about #20 million each to get to Nigeria. It will be wrong to think that all the cat-fishes consumed in Nigeria are produced by Nigerians, most of them are imported from Countries that produce excess of all these things. The best way to empower the youths in Abia is to engage them in Agriculture, for instance, the state can get 1,000 youths, train and deployed them to various sectors of the Agricultural Industry ,then watch the state grow economically. Anybody who try to discourage the 19 youths selected from the 17 local governments areas of Abia State, who are studying Agriculture at the Gregory University, to leave that study for something else will get a response he did not bargain for.
What other examples can you give with regards to benefits in Agriculture ?
They are numerous, those into horticulture, for example, are making much money by selling flowers alone. Gregory University has taking over the production of egg around Uturu and Okigwe,with daily production of about 70-100 crates and through this a lot of jobs are created and many people are empowered. There is a lot to do in agriculture, so many things to do in the agricultural value chain, so many youths can empower themselves , if they get a small land and start a small poultry farm, they can create job that will pay them between N40,000 to N50,000 naira monthly, and you can make up to N200,000 to N300,000 naira every three months through the sales of chicken from this little poultry farm .
