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Strategies & Market Trends : Africa and its Issues- Why Have We Ignored Africa? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (276)	5/4/2004 6:07:40 PM
From: Stephen O	Respond to of 1267

(ANS) Politics Aside, Nigeria Needs Refugee Farmers' Skills 2004-05-03 13:31 (New York) Johannesburg, May 03, 2004 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- IF SOME writers in the Nigerian media are to be believed, a group of six white farmers from Zimbabwe have the power to destabilise their country of about 130-million people. Racist diatribes, in the mould of President Robert Mugabe's own thundering speeches, have suggested the farmers invited by the Kwara State government will only steal Nigerians' land, dupe innocent Nigerians with dangerous genetically modified crops and spread HIV/AIDS in order to get rid of black people. Others feel the invitation is tantamount to sabotaging Mugabe's land reform programme. "We have to recognise that the fragile thread of African unity may be broken forever if we absorb fleeing white farmers," said one writer who was defending continental unity from his adopted homeland where else but the heart of whiteness, Britain. The head of the house committee on agriculture maintained bringing the farmers to Nigeria would "plant the seed of racial problems for our children in future". Concerns have also been raised about how the situation will affect the relationship between Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo and, interestingly, not Mugabe but rather Thabo Mbeki, signalling the general view in Ni- geria of the South African president as Mugabe's protector. But the overall response has been rather less extreme. Another member of the same agriculture committee welcomed the move: "We have no fear southern African farmers will take over our land. We have a different history. Unlike Zimbabwe at the time the white farmers visited them, we are independent and we already have a government in place." Both Obasanjo and the Kwara State governor have said their motivation was not to take away from Zimbabwe but to keep in Africa what was good for Africa. The governor's special assistant wrote in an article that while they were aware of the sentimental arguments about African solidarity, they believed solidarity was keeping skills on the continent rather than having to use scarce resources to buy back what Africa itself could have produced. "Most of the arguments against this plan are emotionally based rather than rational. If African sovereignty is what is at stake, true decolonisation would be best pursued if we create conditions to make us self-reliant, especially in food security." He, and other Nigerian commentators, said Mozambique and Zambia were also closely connected to Zimbabwe's liberation struggle and yet the move by white farmers into those countries had not been accompanied by the same negative rhetoric. They did not see it as sabotage of Mugabe's land policies but rather as a way to develop their own countries. The fact that the same furore has not followed the investment in Nigeria of other whites shows how Mugabe's propaganda machine has influenced debate on the continent. But when all the politics is said and done, the issue is the fact that Nigeria cannot feed itself. The country imports 98% of consumables, of which food is a large proportion, despite its massive tracts of fertile land. Last year alone, the Nigerian government spent an estimated 6bn on agricultural imports, including $750m to import rice and about $500m on milk. At one time it even imported food from its poorer neighbour, Burkina Faso. Many plans to develop agriculture have been put in place but failed to yield results mostly because of corruption and lack of seriousness from a government obsessed with oil. The Kwara State government backs up its decision to invite the farmers with statistics. It says Nigeria's best agricultural yields are about 1,5 tons a hectare, while in Zimbabwe, yields of 10 tons a hectare can be achieved on the same land. There will no doubt be problems with the relocation of the farmers, but given that people's concerns have been publicly raised, it seems unlikely the state and federal governments will not address them. Failure to do so would render the project stillborn. And it is unlikely that the farmers themselves would want to wade into another controversy. Their biggest threat might not be the obvious ones but rather the entrenched political interests in the food import game which are said to be behind much of the negative publicity. The farmers arrive in Nigeria this week to finalise plans for their new life in the country. Let's hope for everyone's sake that all the bases are covered. Games is director of Africa@Work, a publishing, research and conferencing company. by Dianna Games