By Dele Sobowale

“We must therefore not shirk from accusing our friends, or praising our enemies, nor need we be afraid of praising or blaming the same people at different times; since, it is impossible that the men and women who are engaged in public affairs should always be right; and unlikely they should always be in the wrong. We must therefore detach ourselves from the actors and actresses in our story, and apply to them only such statements and judgments as their conduct deserves.” – Polybius, c200-118 BC.

Seldom have I felt called upon to defend a public official, especially someone as highly-placed as the First Lady of Nigeria or State. Invariably, they have officials who are paid to defend them – if and as considered necessary.

But, there is an exception to every rule. In fact, this defence of Mrs Remi Tinubu, would be the second time that I would be writing a rejoinder to an article highly critical of the President’s wife. The first was in support of late Mrs Maryam Babangida of blessed memory; the wife of former President Ibrahim Babangida. She had initiated the Better Life For Rural Women Programme, BLFRW, while Nigerians were grappling with the pains of adjustment to the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP. The mission of the Better Life project was to empower rural women who were responsible for about 70 per cent of food produced by small scale farmers. 

The women lacked, and still lack, access to land, credit, good roads for evacuation of their farm products and support from the states. Mrs Babangida’s idea was simple. The only way to ensure sustainable food security was for governments to remove all these impediments.

She persuaded her husband, who supported the idea and funded it. She then organised the wives of the Military Governors; who in turn were instructed to mobilise the wives of the Local Government Chairmen in their states and who were also expected to organise the women in the rural areas of each council. For the first time in Nigerian history (and sadly the last time), rural women were no longer working alone; they became part of an army of food producers – with a “General” commanding the army.

I was in the North at the time; and most of my time was spent in rural areas. That made me an eye-witness unlike all the journalists/columnists commenting on the programme from their air-conditioned offices in Lagos, Ibadan and Kaduna. 

As far as I was concerned, the usually know-nothing commentators in the newspapers disgraced journalism on that occasion. 

To begin with the programme was renamed Better Women For Rural Life; because of the uniform the First Ladies wore on the day the programme was launched at the Federal level and at each state launching.

As far as the Lagos/Ibadan media was concerned, the urban-based ladies were on a jamboree – led, of course, by Mrs Babangida. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actual fact, nothing less than 530 rural roads were built nationwide to link villages to the nearest towns and which greatly reduced post-harvest losses reaching up to 40 per cent of perishable foods.

All these were not reported by journalists who disliked IBB; and could find nothing commendable in the wife’s programme. A particularly malicious article got me to send a rejoinder to correct the impression; at a time when I had not met IBB or his wife.

As far as I can recollect, Better Life was a remarkable success; and no initiative by all the governments – Federal and States – has come close. Many urban dwellers should still be able to remember the weekly Better Life mini-markets selling food stuff cheaper than regular markets. That was the reason this second rejoinder has become necessary.  

As it was in the beginning, so it shall be!

“It is the part of a king or queen to do good for his or her subjects and be maligned for it. – Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC, Vanguard Book of Quotations, VBQ, P. 113. Read online.

Two weeks ago, one of my favourite columnists took on Mrs Tinubu – ostensibly on her efforts to encourage urban, backyard and balcony farming. It was a brutal attack; which carried with it the possibility of leading to Nigeria throwing out the baby with the bath water on food production. Careless readers might read into that angrily written article that the columnist is against the idea of urban farming which the current First Lady is trying to promote. I sincerely hope not; and it is my hope that Mrs Tinubu would not be discouraged by the attack  — which, in my view, is undeserved for a simple reason; I am a professional farmer and my experience on various aspects of food production enables me to determine what is positive intervention that all the city-based columnists put together. I am afraid we might be repeating the mistake we made with Mrs Babangida by attempting to visit our frustrations with the FG on Mrs Tinubu. We would be cutting our noses to spite somebody’s face. 

“Farming would be mighty easy, if it is done with biros and computers in a cozy office.” – US President James Madison, 1751-1836.

For some reasons only the two of them can explain, but, most likely based on the motherly instinct to feed their children, the two mothers chose to intervene on increasing food production. Mrs Babangida addressed the hurdles rural women must scale to produce and helped to remove some of them permanently – like the rural roads constructed.

In the 1990s, the smallest girl could go to farm, far removed from the nearest tarred road without fear. Today, two new developments have intruded in our lives calling for a fundamental change in the way we produce food in Nigeria.

Annual floods in the river valleys of Nigeria have rendered farming in low-lying areas more perilous. We need to move upland. Bandits, herdsmen and other hoodlums have been driving farmers off the land since Buhari became President. With rural areas endangered, it is imperative to move more of the food production to urban and safer areas.

Mrs Tinubu has rightly pointed out what should have been obvious to the Federal and States Ministries of Agriculture years ago. Conventional farming policies have failed us and are increasing multidimensional poverty in Nigeria rapidly.

Contrary to the opinions of most of our erudite columnists, who would not know what to do with a hoe and cutlass, if given a parcel of land, the two women never pretended to be experts on farming, neither was it their intention to do the work themselves. Their role was that of a catalyst in a chemical reaction – which makes things happen without undergoing a change itself.

The First Lady in every nation is always in position to influence events – for good or ill. I honestly believe that objective analysts and commentators should first ask the question: will this initiative solve or add to problems? We should support it if it will help to solve problems and oppose it if it will create more problems.

 

Mobilising people, even those burdened by society, is not always easy. That is why the masses are never revolutionary. Asking urban dwellers to leave their comfort zones and start producing food will amount to moving mountains – which must be moved for our own sake. Only someone with clout can do it. 

We should support this effort for our own sake. The rural areas are tired and besieged. They cannot feed us anymore.