Help for “Agbado” Economy and Tinubu Presidency Prepared By Elder Ayokunle FAGBEMI

Panelist at the Apostolic Roundtable (Africa Edition) organized

Stewards of Nations tagged “ART 2024 DISCUSSION: STEWARDING

MONETARY SYSTEM FOR WEALTH CREATION”

Held on Thursday, January 16, 2024 @ Wisdom Arena, Agege Lagos.

INTRODUCTION AND APPRECIATION

I wish to appreciate the organizers of this event for finding me worthy to be invited simply based

On the referral of another person. Like I remarked to Apostle Bolaji Akinyemi, taking such a risk for

An “Apostolic Roundtable” can only be by the leadership of and clearance with the Holy Spirit. Yes,

It is a major risk to invite someone ninety-eight hours (98hrs) before an event, anticipate and

Receive a positive response to take the stage and be expected to add value unless there has been

A foreordination and predestination for which the guest may have had some form of preparedness.

I therefore wish to thank God Almighty and all those involved in processing my invitation, logistics

And passage to be at this event. May we all keep being sensitive to and operate always in serious

Communion with the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

EVENT FLYER AND CONTEXTUALIZATION OF THEME AND FOCUS

My Spiritual Mentor, Professor Durojaiye Adegboye, the President of Gospel Unlimited

Foundation, renowned for being one of the early Christian Communication Strategist, despite

Being a professor of zoology, taught me on communications messaging, coding, and decoding for

Proper comprehension.

So, permit me to interrogate the messages on the flyer first sent to me and the second used to

Broadcast my involvement. They both contained the following messages:

? “The Future in View”

? “Stewards of Nations”

? “ART 2024 DISCUSSION: STEWARDING MONETARY SYSTEM FOR WEALTH CREATION”

? “STN! Stewarding your season of wealth.”

The flyers are evidently clear that this event is holding as an organic component of series of

Initiatives being implemented by the Apostolic Roundtable (Africa Edition), and that it is powered

By “Voice of the Word Ministries”.

Implicitly, this gathering is about the future, where patriots are gathered as stewards of nations

That they represent to brainstorm on topical issues of concerns requiring proactive thinking

Outside the box to emerge with preventive strategic responses planning and logical way forward

That if implemented should help mitigate, manage, and transform chaos associated with an issue

Or set of issues with seemingly hydra-headed manifestation(s) bound to cause multidimensional

Challenges of spiritual, social, political, and economic catastrophes. We must therefore answer

The queries (I) which and who’s Future? And (ii) the identity of the “nations” from where the

Stewards are gathered to this meeting!

I am not the keynote speaker or lead presenter, so, I shall only make passing comments on these

Two queries conjunctively. This is a gathering of true Christian believers who by virtue of relevant

Scriptures contained in the Holy Bible on the one hand have dual, concurrent, and continuous

Future of time bound periodic present and future, which is interwoven into a timeless eternal

Future. On the second hand, we are “of this world but not of this world”, “royal priesthoods and a Holy nation”, and incidentally Nigerians by earthly definition of citizenship with challenging Sociopolitical identities rooted in our ethnic nationalities.

Beloved brethren, we should agree that these responses shall again lead us to other challenging

Sub-queries. For example, as Nigerians, which future do we seek? Are we seeking the future

Prescribed by God Almighty, the collective of well-intentioned citizens – (motivated by pure

National interests) – in their positive right frames of mind, and/or those by self-centered, selfish, antipoor, and partly patriotic elites of the Nigerian-state.

The Holy Bible is replete with how God Almighty can motivate, cause, and utilize the latter group to do His Will, even when it is contrary to and against their personal or collective will and agenda.

A classic example being the account of how all the male elite structure ensured that, in the book of Esther, Queen Vashti was deposed and sent into exile in order to pave way for Esther to ultimately emerge as Queen. The biblical account of Esther’s emergence as queen shall continue to be novel, worthy of serious intellectual and theological inquest. The “All-Knowing God Almighty” as the omniscient personality knew that Hamman was going to plot for the elimination of the Jews for which a divine salvation plan must have been activated earlier than when the scheme eventually hatched.

The divine plan was such that even Mordecai was never directly rewarded for his good deeds and service to the throne until the stage was ready and set for the proverbial biblical overturning.

Another biblical passage of continuous interest to me is Isaiah 45 concerning King Cyrus who

GOD Almighty caused the documentation on him to include that Cyrus was “His anointed” and emphatically disclosed that He is the one holding Cyrus “right hand...to subdue nations...loose the armor of kings...” (NKJV) Brethren, I am not here for another Bible Study! We are attempting to situate our conversations around an interesting statement made by now incumbent President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed TINUBU GCFR during the electioneering campaigns ahead of the February 25, 2023, Presidential elections.

In the same vein, let us proceed with the basic assumptions, if not presuppositions, that all of us are familiar with “Stewarding” as part of Christian Kingdom Agenda mandate. We are obliged to be actively engaged in stewarding as a triad, (i) Towards God Almighty now and eternal Accountability, (ii) Self, and (iii) others and the larger society starting from the next person, our Neighbors, whom we are to love the same way we love ourselves. I shall refrain from delving into the discourse of how well individuals love themselves these days; knowing that we are very familiar that we are in the last days, “when men shall be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God Almighty”. So, if the fear and love of God Almighty is out of the equation, we can only best imagine the kind of self-love not to talk of that towards siblings and neighbors.

Each time stewarding is brought into focus, or presented to take the center stage it is often Connected with “wealth”. Biblically, wealth is approached from three dimensions that are

Reflective of human orientations and adaptation, namely, (a) creation, (b) sharing, and (c)

Hoarding. By design, man is expected to be corrector and sustainer of wealth with God Almighty

For the common good of all stakeholders of the global ecosystem starting from the Garden of

Eden. Therefore, all wealth creation must exhibit holistic transformation that are responsibly just,

Mutually responsive for them to be supportive and beneficial to stakeholders, and ultimately

Empowering through the transfer of skills and knowledgebase for which there must be

Stewardship accountability at all stages.

In order to properly grasp the ideas pertaining to “Stewarding” and “Wealth” may I invite?

Participants to read: WEALTH CREATION AND THE STEWARDSHIP OF CREATION, A paper from

The Global Consultation on Wealth Creation for Transformation, organized by the Lausanne

Movement and BAM Global in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in March 2017.

HISTORICITY AND CONTEXT OF STATEMENT ON “50MILLION YOUTH AND AGBADO

ECONOMY”

Citizen Bola Ahmed Tinubu made this statement on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, at the 12th

Colloquium event in Kano to commemorate his birthday. Interestingly, negative social media

Political spinning of snippets by his opponents and political traducers from it failed to receive the

Kind of strategic communication pushback required from his team. Whereas, Tinubu’s traducers

Can be allowed to engage in the negative sociopolitical spinning that ensued, it was unfortunate

That his aides and information managers failed to acknowledge that he spoke extempore and that

He disclosed that due to his very tight schedules he nearly did not want to honor the invitation to be personally present especially because he had been going through “sleep deficit” but ended up giving in to be “packaged” into Kano for the event. Painfully, during the speech he did not shy away From his human frailty of dozing off where he was sitting, hence any form of incoherence ought to have been understood and pardoned. To agents of “yellow journalism”, caustic negative partisan Politicking, and sworn deliberate political traducers, anything that can be used to destroy his Political ambition is game and fair! During that period, as part of my standard daily routine professional involvement, for which I must engage in media monitoring for democratic sustenance, peace and security data gathering, I came across the data and was taken aback that a well-resourced political actor, like Senator Bola Tinubu, as former legislator, and two-term governor of Lagos State, was not then properly rescued by his team from the embarrassment! Eventually, when the statement got reengineered for inclusion as a strategy in his presidential governance framework document published as RENEWED HOPE 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria, his team did a poor job at projecting it as a cardinal program of his presidency. Maybe they got distracted by the caustic nature of partisan politicking they had to deal with. If not, the right place to start was to have emphasized the portion of the document, which appears explicitly and completely his own thoughts and words, to wit, the “Foreword” wherein amongst others, particularly the third paragraph, he reiterated:

Our nation’s history affirms that our people constitute our most valuable treasure.

Whether the hardworking farmer, the industrious market woman, the dynamic young

Entrepreneur or the hopeful child, Nigerian people rank among the best anywhere. They

excel in every aspect of human endeavor when given a fair chance.

We can simply observe that in his mind for effective governance service delivery, the first cluster of productive citizens he mentioned were “the hardworking farmers” – this definitively is

Intentional and deliberate. For some of us, we are not surprised, as someone from the Southwest Region of the country, the attachment to farming remains a cardinal reference point for integrated development and growth! Under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with agriculture, the then Western Region Government leveraged on agriculture through farm settlement schemes, produce boards

And effective social safety nets that gave dignity of labor to those involved in creating wealth from agricultural endeavors to transform the region. Western Nigeria Government using proceeds from agriculture invested in human capital development and infrastructures – spotting landmark projects such as Cocoa House, Liberty Stadium (now posthumously named after him), and Western Nigeria

Television (WNTV) – first in Africa, etc.

Tinubu in that “Foreword” emphasized that Nigerians “do not seek superficial answers to hard questions. Nor do they want the broken, unimaginative, failed promises repackaged and fed to them again. They want true and innovative solutions which address the challenging realities of today.” Thus, in summarizing his thoughts into bullet points, he drew attention to wanting to improve our political economic system, and consciously avowed to grow our national economy in an integrated manner by stating that with his government, he would:

• Build a Nigeria, especially for our youth, where sufficient jobs with decent wages create a better life.

• Manufacture, create, and invent more of the goods and services we require. Nigeria shall be known as a nation of creators, not just of consumers.

• Export more and import less, strengthening both the naira and our way of life.

• Continue assisting our ever-toiling farmers, through enlightened agricultural policy that promotes productivity and assures decent incomes, so that farmers can support their families and feed the nation.

From, these statements, it is clear that the trajectory and bedrock of a Tinubu Presidency was going to be agrarian to a reasonable extent, hence agriculture was listed as the third item after national security and economy respectively. From our reading, his team downgraded agriculture probably for political correctness skewed in favor of identifying security as “bedrock of prosperous and democratic society”. Painfully since assuming office it seems they have gotten distracted from the primacy of it to their principal’s conviction. It is worth noting that the portion of the document on Agriculture spanned through only pages 26 – 29 of which pictures and graphics covering about 47% of their surface area.

“AGBADO” AS METAPHOR FOR CITIZENS’ SURVIVAL, SUBSISTENCE, POLITICAL ECONOMIC

DISCOURSE AND TRANSFORMATIVE SECURITY MANAGEMENT

From our understanding, whereas the public speaker, Tinubu, based on his sleep deficit and choice of speaking extempore did not apply proper logic and sequencing, the views expressed were metaphoric and designed to convey to his audience of policymakers that the solution to the challenges prevalent in the Nigerian-state were easy to resolve, if not complicated by public officers and those in government. It is our considered opinion that he sought to apply Maslow’s

Hierarchy of Needs and some other proactive principles as he jumped from one thought formation line to another. When objectively assessed within the confines of the colloquium, the “Agbado metaphoric response was to provide panacea for the hunger citizens were experiencing as an exacerbation of multidimensional poverty amidst insecurity and very disturbing social stratification that has negative consequences within sociopolitical systems that are less focused on integrated development.

In simple terms, if we agree that “Agbado/Maize” was used metaphorically, then, it is easy to appreciate that his concept was on how best to resolve the hunger in the land within a very short space of time. Realizing that many simple subsistence food crops can be farmed and harvested within the same timeframe meant for maize (corn), that is, 50 – 120 days depending upon specie, variety, climatic, environmental, and existential conditionality. His metaphor must be understood as seeking to capture farm produce that are part of integrated and mutually beneficial value-chain system; and part of the rudimentary “farm-to-table” agricultural interventions with minimal processing. We stretch to assert that they must provide inclusive complimentary nutrition varieties required to achieve balanced diet and healthy living.

By implication, the phrase was calling for initiatives in the area of agriculture and food security. Thus, specifically, in terms of plants, we are expected to focus on other crops than Maize/Corn that truly literally translate to capture “Agbado”. The plants meeting our earlier stated criteria include, but not limited to Bambara nuts, Beans, Cowpea, Groundnut, Guinea corn, Irish Potato,

Millet, Sorghum, Soya, and Sweet Potato. While, Poultry, Livestock, and Aquatics should include, but not limited to, Catfish, Chicken, Goats, Guinea fowl, Pigeon, Pigs, Rabbit, Sheep, Snails, and Tilapia fish.

In our considered opinion, it was a subtle call to GO GREEN, recalling that he also talked about climate change. So, he was more or less reechoing the need for Nigerians to be encouraged to return to the farm in order to get fed by being self-reliant. In short, it was a policymaking call, which was lost to the audience, compromised by the mainstream media that focused on and reported it as a gaffe, and exceptionally spine into political negativity and jaundiced yellow journalism for demeaning a then presidential aspirant. So, traducers derailed us from seeing it as an opportunity to harmonize the justifications by previous governments at reengineering Nigeria for self-reliance and food security through General Olusegun Obasanjo’s “Operation Feed the Nation”, President Shehu Shagari’s “Green Revolution”, and President Ibrahim Babangida’s multipronged interventions through Directorate for Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) and Directorate for

Social Mobilization (MAMSER).

SOCIOPOLITICAL CONTEXTUALIZING THE 50million TARGET POPULATION FOR “AGBADO”

ECONOMY

The media narratives inspired negativities equally denied us opportunities to properly harness any meaningful sociopolitical contextualizing and interrogation of the statements then by a presidential aspirant with his target population of 50million Nigerians as part of the proposed schema!

Our attempt to situate the mentioned target population of 50million within sociopolitical perspectives, cannot but be done by first situating the data in terms of:

• Nigeria’s Population Census of circa 215million: it constitutes 23.26%

• Registered Voters of 93,469,008: it is 53.5% of registered voters (and 57.3% of those who have collected their PVCs and can actually vote)

• Total Votes Cast for Presidential Elections: the figure constitutes 208.1% of the

Cumulative valid votes for the 2023 presidential elections – conversely, those that voted to determine the incumbent president of Nigeria in 2023 were only 48.1% ofthe proposed “Agbado Economy target population.”

From this data contextualization, we should have explored, verified, and validated the relevance of the data against votes cast and received during previous presidential elections. Evidently, from available data of sociopolitical realities, the target population of 50million, we may have then cautioned, as social science researchers by stating the proposed target population, may be too ambitious! Ambitious within the context of data on previous presidential elections. If we had shared our notes then with the political class, we would have been spot on! Realizing that only 25,286,616 – about 28.63 per cent– of all eligible voters in Nigeria, participated in 2023 Presidential Election.

From another perspective, we say ambitious because we were circumspect that if care was not properly taken some public officials and cronies may push him to attempt continuing with corruption infested social investment initiatives of the immediate past Buhari administration flag-shipped by conditional cash transfer, trader money, etc. that have remained opaque. We definitely have counsel, in fact, we are still counseling that the focus of Agbado Economy should be (i) create job and employment opportunities as part of holistic endeavors aimed at removing people from poverty; (ii) create enabling environment for multiple stakeholders’ involvement; (iii) attract private sector involvement; and (iv) facilitate attitudinal and behavioral changes in citizens, especially the wealthy, including those we cannot safely verify nor validate their sources but we do not want to accuse of corruptly enriching themselves.

However, then, as statecraft strategists, we would have encouraged any commissioning political actor or presidential campaign that the target population was achievable if pursued with and for informed electoral planning. How do we mean? Since the figure emerged during an election regime

YEAR VOTES CAST OF VOTES TO PROPOSED AGBADO ECONOMY POPULATION (50million)

1999 29,848,441 59.7%

2003 39,480,489 79%

2007 35,397,517 70.8%

2011 38,209,978 76.4%

2015 28,587,564 57.2%

2019 27,324,583 54.6%

2023 24,025,940 48.1%

INFORMED ELECTORAL VICTORY PLANNING

Campaign event, we have chosen to reflect on how the target “Agbado Economy Population” can be achieved with a mindset that seeks to achieve broad-spectrum inclusion and participatory involvement that a presidential candidate can operationalize easily. In this direction, we would speak to the dynamics of strategic population mobilization with the mindset to connect them as potential electoral voters that must be tied to the polling units and accounted for by political actors through the various tiers of partisan political structures and candidates that have their fortunes seemingly tied to that of the presidential candidate.

Notwithstanding that we are now interrogating attendant issues and dynamics post electioneering campaigns and electoral victory and the government in place, the data are still very relevant. Their relevance cannot be overemphasized in the wake of the unfortunate malfeasance, corruption and multidimensional misconducts-laden implementation of the Federal Government flagship pro-poor / poverty reduction program, Nigerian Social Investment Program. A program that President Bola Tinubu has been constrained to suspend for now. So, our conversation at a time like this is very apt and should serve as an opportunity to present an action plan to the incumbent President for proper consideration and implementation.

TRANSLATION OF BOTH 50MILLION TARGET POPULATION AND AGBADO ECONOMY INTO

POLICY INITIATIVE

Our conviction is very simple and straightforward, translate the statement phrase that is being christened “Agbado Economy” into a quick-win policy package! That is, codified as a simple initiative that can easily fit into ongoing diverse national and global agenda and policy programming. It shall be a single but multipronged initiative with multidimensional, multidisciplinary, crosscutting, and multiple stakeholders engaging. It is the establishment of the “Nigeria Integrated Farm Settlement Scheme, (NIFSS),” nationwide! Ordinarily, for political correctness, we should have suggested that the scheme be named after the incumbent president.

We opted against such because of some of the negative campaign commentaries against his personal as an individual with potentials to appropriate the entire country to himself as an incumbent president. It will also augur well for purposes of sustainability by succeeding governments.

In the following segments of this presentation, we shall seek to underscore that the proposed farm settlement scheme can easily be adopted as the logical way forward to help us navigate an exit strategy from the current debacles associated with Nigeria’s multidimensional poverty, overburdening 28.92% inflation rate, and failed social investment program. We shall show that the proposed farm settlement significantly meets the expectations of an initiative that can help accelerate the achievement of the globally recognized Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

POLICY FRAMING OF NIGERIA INTEGRATED FARM SETTLEMENT SCHEME (NIFSS) AS

TRANSLATED AGBADO ECONOMY METAPHOR INTO REALITY

We are convinced that in order to ensure that we are not involved in any form of attention seeking and/or political correctness grandstanding of a gaffe metaphor into reality, in this section, we are verifying and validating the proposal against:

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designated by United Nations and globally endorsed as viable benchmarking instrument for assessing development and growth for the now and future.

Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan as conceptualized for the country under the immediate past Federal Government of Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari of the All-Peoples’ Congress (APC) political party like President Bola Tinubu.

National Security Strategy

RENEWED HOPE 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria, published as the harmonization of the manifestos of Messrs. APC and Bola Tinubu that was the bases for the robust electioneering campaigns, victory, and taking-off for governance services delivery.

a. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Our inference indicate that the proposed Nigeria Integrated Farm Settlement Scheme (NIFSS) shall contribute to Nigeria’s resolve and capacity to meeting the SDGs ahead and beyond of

SDG initiative target dates.

b. National Security Strategy

Variable – security type Relevance

Economic Security and Opportunities ???

Energy Security ??

Food Security ????

Labor Security ????

Health Security ??

Education Security ???

Environmental Security ??

Political Security ????

Social Security ???

c. Nigeria’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan

d. RENEWED HOPE 2023: Action Plan for a Better Nigeria

Item Congruity/Integration Remarks National Security ???????? Most assured way of giving life to this all-important component of his agenda that PBAT personally holds dear to himself by jumpstarting the economy, reducing the area of ungoverned spaces that have continued to heighten insecurity, and facilitating quick win in the agricultural agenda. Emphatically, shall contribute to reducing unemployment, poverty, inflation, and housing deficit through the farm hostels and other residential packages. NIFSS shall equally stabilize Nigeria’s rural – urban migration dynamics.

Economy Agriculture

Power ????

Oil and Gas ???? Provide Biofuel alternates to accelerate industrial application

Transportation ????

Education ?????? Solve challenges of poor school enrollment. Enhance farming and agricultural extension skills acquisition packages

Healthcare ???? Food security, zero hunger, adequate nutrition for optimum health

Each farm settlement shall have its own primary health facility.

Farms shall ultimately become reference centers for production of pharmaceutical grade corn syrup, corn starch, sucrose, etc.

Digital Economy ???? Reinforce digital use for agrarian extension services/marketing

Sport, Entertainment

Culture?????

Youth Empowerment and

Entrepreneurship????????

Women Empowerment ????

Social Programs ????????

Judicial Reforms ??? Innovative funding through the proceeds from public officials suspected, arraigned, or being prosecuted for corruption may require initiating judicial reforms to accommodate “Pre-forfeiture

Deployment of Suspect Funds”, and “Plea Bargain”

Federalism/Decentralization of Power ?????? As conceptualized, the three tiers of governance systems (Federal, State and LGAs) are involved. In addition, various host communities shall adequately participate through their traditional and religious institutions. The farm settlement initiative shall require enlisting the shared vision from the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), Association of Local Governments of Nigeria

(ALGON)Foreign Policy ??? Review of bilateral and multilateral internal development partnering SUGGESTED IMPLEMENTATION ROADMAP FOR ACHIEVING NIFSS

Drawing inspiration from the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, prevalent legal and policy frameworks, and extant regulations it is possible to activate the proposed Nigeria Integrated Farm Settlement Scheme (NIFSS) as strategic low-hanging fruit of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. NIFSS has quick-win potentials of delivering expected outcomes and outputs that can be appreciated within one calendar year. We therefore implore the organizers of this event, the Apostolic Roundtable (ART) Africa Division to kindly consider the following as the way forward:

1. Constitute a working team to prepare a “Zero-Draft” of NIFSS Concept Policy Paper, along with Business, and Financial Plans.

2. Organize a Strategic Stakeholders’ Peer Review Forum to review these draft instruments with a view to properly shaping them for shared vision, enlistment of support and ownership.

3. Formal submission of NIFSS Concept Policy Proposal and annexures for President Bola

Ahmed Tinubu’s consideration.

Thank you for listening

Elder Ayokunle FAGBEMI