Food crisis’ll persist without water, tech, political reforms – ex-Adamawa commissioner

AGRICULTURAL engineer and former Adamawa State Secretary to the Government, Dr Umar Bindir, has warned that Nigeria’s food security challenges will remain unresolved unless reforms extend beyond farming into water management, technology deployment and political leadership.

Speaking during an interview on Arise News on Sunday, Dr Bindir acknowledged the efforts of the current administration but stressed that food security cannot be handled in isolation by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. According to him, sustainable food production requires coordinated action across several sectors of the economy.

“The administration is doing its best,” he said, “but food security is not a Ministry of Agriculture thing. It is supposed to be the coalition, the partnership, the synergy of many sectors working together.”

He identified water management as the most overlooked yet most critical factor in agricultural productivity and rural stability. Bindir argued that without comprehensive reform of the country’s water systems, gains in crop production, livestock development and fisheries would remain limited.

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“Water management remains the most neglected but critical component of agricultural productivity and rural stability,” he said, emphasising that managing water resources in Nigeria requires serious reform. Productivity across crops, livestock and fisheries, he added, depends fundamentally on effective and efficient water systems.

Drawing from his experience in Adamawa State, Dr Bindir noted that insecurity has evolved from conventional armed conflict to what he described as ‘communal or community insecurity.’ According to him, the country has largely moved beyond what security experts refer to as kinetic or combat-level insecurity.

“We’re now facing what I call communal or community insecurity,” he explained. “It is your brother who, if he’s not happy with you, will organise for people to kidnap you.”

He disclosed that during his time in office, authorities documented elements of insecurity in detail, including names and telephone numbers, and made such information public to enhance accountability. The data, he said, was digitised and proved useful in addressing security concerns.

“We documented every single element of insecurity as data and then we digitised this. That actually became quite useful,” he said, adding that in the age of artificial intelligence, Nigeria must build robust data systems capable of anticipating threats before they occur.

Infrastructure development

On infrastructure development, Bindir called for a shift in government spending priorities toward large-scale canal systems to manage flooding and improve irrigation. He criticised the country’s recurring flood disasters, which destroy lives, livestock and communities annually.

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“The world is laughing at us when every year we celebrate negatively flooding all over the place,” he said. “We should be able to know where this water is coming from and transport it meaningfully.”

Rather than focusing solely on flyovers and road infrastructure, he urged authorities to invest in canals that can move water to communities where it is needed, while also storing excess water for dry seasons.

“We should be able to learn how to store this water and use it when it is needed. Instead of all these high flyovers, let them also have canals that transport water to the communities,” he said.

Addressing reports of imported tractors left unused, Bindir downplayed the belief that mechanisation alone can transform agriculture. He described tractors simply as power sources, arguing that they do not automatically change an agricultural system or pay for themselves without proper planning and integration.

“Tractors don’t change your agriculture system and it never pays for itself. Tractor is a power source,” he stated.

Policy, intellectual shortcomings

He also attributed persistent policy shortcomings to an overconcentration of macroeconomic experts in government, with insufficient representation of technical professionals at senior levels. Despite Nigeria having more than 300 universities and over 600 research institutions, Bindir questioned why the country continues to grapple with poverty and insecurity.

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“In most cases, our governments are infested with macroeconomic people, but we’re very short of technical people at the macro level,” he said. “How come that these engines can produce massively, highly critical people to think and it is coexisting with primitive insecurity and primitive poverty? Something is wrong.”

According to him, Nigeria must harness its intellectual resources more effectively, ensuring that the expertise within universities and research institutions translates into practical policy implementation.

“Unless Nigeria understands that you use your intelligentsia and ensure that you are implementing your programmes, that is not a very good equation,” he said. “We should mine our intelligentsia to be able to tackle some of these things.”

On politics, Bindir suggested that leadership should focus on service rather than personal ambition. He criticised the tendency to pursue power without a clear commitment to improving lives, urging politicians to rethink their approach to governance.

“We don’t close our eyes to say, ‘God, give me leadership so that I can change people’s lives.’ We just open our eyes to say that we must be this, or this man must be that,” he remarked.