Nigeria is supposed to be self-sufficient in feeding its teaming population, for over sixty years we are still struggling to put food on our table relying on imports that are sapping out foreign reserves.I will try to be very neutral by not blaming anybody but tell my experience on two area I did try my hand on. I made a good business plan for small scale to medium scale Oil Palm processing to cater for southern oil palm belt, to be double sure that it works as planned I Operated the plant for roughly seven years.
When it was done on me that all my capital was gone, with 25 people on my payroll I went to Agric Bank for help the officer said I do not look like a farmer well dressed with glasses. that was the last straw. I will be brief as many drums of water had passed under the bridge, as a trained Industrial Engineer with hand on experience in vegetable oil production in one of the large oil plant outfit in Nigeria, The company was solvent with the few dedicated workforce that wants Nigeria to succeed, we diversified into Palm Wine bottling and Black soap making that was well received in the society, but when the ugly head of corruption raised its head and do not want to be a party to with my experience and knack to do the right thing I went to Federal Oil Palm that was when I was cautioned by a European CEO that the project I came to Solicit for will not see the light of the day, that is another story. I had Engineering Company caring for repairs of any type in Oil Palm industry, it was doing fine but my Agric company was draining my resources the Agric manager I employed to help manage defrauded the company's workers salary for three months. The problem with Agric in Southern Nigeria is the human factor with everything good on paper but the human element is the drawback. Investors were coming to me for advice, being frank with them on the venture they went into it but regrettedI diversified into Maize cropping, harvested ten metric tons then have to beg the agent in charge to recoup my investment.
The government is doing window dressing as the infrastructure for small and medium scale is not available. If the government is serious about their commitments to be self-sustenance then I am ready to give advice on how to quadruple the small scale output.I can be reached at olast11@gmail.com for further discussion on this issue.