Down! Down! Down! That seems to be the only music the price of crude oil is responding to in the international market; from $147 a few weeks ago, it has suddenly plummeted to an abysmal $58 and there are indications that the freefall is not over yet.

There is no hiding the fact that oil-exporting countries like Nigeria and their constituent states have been gripped by the fear of budget deficits.

Akwa Ibom State as a major oil producing state is not immune to this global shock. In fact, at its executive council meeting last Wednesday, Gov. Godswill Akpabio was said to have told his cabinet members to tighten their belts and be ready to mop up all available sources of internally generated revenue.

But in an attempt to avoid the possible gloomy days he approved a whopping N12 billion to be sunk into agricultural sector.

This ‘Operation go-back-to-farm’ is to cover mainly chicken, fish and other animal productions. It is codenamed Accelerated Livestock and Fish Production Programme (ALFIPP).
The state commissioners for information and agriculture, Mr Aniekan Umanah and Prof. Etok Ekanem, respectively while conveying the outcome of the exco meeting to the press on Thursday, said the three-year programme commerce next year with the establishment of three commercial fish farms each in the three senatorial districts of the state, believing the t such would guide the production of livestock and fishery sub-sector.

But to fast track the chicken production aspect of the programme, Umanah said another N33.5 million was equally approved, for the commencement of poultry hatchery at Mbiaya Uruan. The poultry hatchery was a Federal Government project started and abandoned more than 30 years ago. But Umanah said the Federal Ministry of Agriculture was happy to hand over the project to the state government.

Akwa Ibom State needs an average of 45,000 day-old chicks per week whereas what it is actually getting was in the region of 3000 only from the state-run hatchery at Use Offot, Uyo.
To make this multi-billion naira projects successful, Umanah said the state exco has approved “the opening of discussion with technical partners in agriculture who have expressed interest to work with the state. Council took this decision in reaction to the scarcity or unavailability of livestock and fisheries development in the entire South-South region.”

But who are these technical partners? Prof. Ekanem said they are Israelis who are willing to put in 40 percent of the cost while the state would contribute the remaining 60 percent of the project: “This is the first most serious intervention by government in agriculture since the creation of this state. We lacked the framework to implement agric programmes when we came in 2007, so we spent far less than was budgeted. This year we have improved to about N1.6 billion. We know that Akwa Ibom does not have a lot of land mass, that is why we are going into fishery and poultry production.

“We shall also ensure that we give 50 farmers three goats – one male and two females- in each of the local government areas so as to reverse the current trend where goats consumed in the state are brought in from outside. We want to rather export goats to other states.”

When all these begin to yield the expected dividends, Ekanem said the stake would rake in not less than N10 billion annually while at least 100,000 direct or indirect new jobs would be created.
“We are doing this because we know that whether the price falls or rises, Nigeria’s oil would finish some, maybe, in the next forty years. Mexico had the largest oil field 90 years ago, now it has shrunk. So even if we don’t have oil again, we wont suffer now that we have made a giant and serious effort to go back to agriculture.”

Umanah added: “We are aware of the oil price fall. But it will not affect any of our projects. His Excellency is determined to complete all the project he has started.”