The Rice Farmers Association Nigeria, Zaria local government chapter has raised the alarm over alleged shoddy deals associated with the federal government RIFAN loan scheme.
The chairman of the chapter, Malam Mohammed Lawal Jibril, faulted the scheme in an interview with journalists in Zaria, explaining that members of his chapter would pull-out from the scheme.
He alleged that the entire scheme was hijacked by the leadership of the association at the state level for selfish interest, aimed at exploiting and enslaving the farmers as well as sabotaging government effort towards diversification of agriculture.
“RIFAN Zaria chapter is pulling out of this scheme because of some shoddy deals therein, because there are some regulations that are detrimental to farmers and farming business.
“We have carefully examined the scheme and realised that a farmer will eventually gain nothing at the end of the programme.
“At the initial stage, they told us something different but when things unfolded, we saw something different from what we were told,’’ he said
It could be recalled the scheme was collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Designed to boost rice production toward making the country self-sufficient in rice production and discourage rice importation Lawal-Jibril lauded the efforts of the ministry of agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria for initiating the scheme, which was initially packaged to assist the poor rice farmers.
He pointed out that when RIFAN chairman in Kaduna, Alhaji Junaidu Zubairu-Birnin-Daji, came to Zaria, he publicly admitted that the scheme had encountered some problems.
Lawal-Jibril said the state chairman had pledged to bring sanity to the scheme with a view to making corrections for the good of both individual farmer and the entire society.
Lawal-Ajibril added that, to worsen the situation, the state RIFAN connived with officials from Bank of Agriculture (BOA) to open bank accounts for Zaria RIFAN members without their consent, saying, “this an impersonation.
“This people collected our data including our Bank Verification Number (BVN) but unknown to us they opened accounts for us without consulting us, this is a fraud.
“Zaria has the largest number of rice farmers in Kaduna State, we have big time rice farmers who have large farmlands not only in Zaria but across the state.
“We have about 2,721 screened and certified member eligible for the dry season loan scheme and 4,600 farmers are now undergoing screening for rainy season rice farming loan scheme,” he noted.
He advised the federal government to urgently revisit the scheme in order to make necessary corrections to enable the progrmme record the desired success.
