Francis Sadhere
Mr. Sylvester Okoh is the Field Project Manager of the Foundation for Partnership in the Niger Delta, (PIND) – a Nigerian non-profit Foundation established in 2010 with initial funding by Chevron Corporation to support a portfolio of socio-economic development programs for Nigeria’s Niger Delta in order to improve standards of living of communities in the region. Mr. Okoh spoke about the organization’s interventionist projects in the cassava, oil palm and fish farm sectors in the Niger Delta region aimed at the pro-poor people. He spoke to our News Editor, Francis Sadhere during PIND’s Media Workshop – Towards the Promotion of Proven Development Models for Pro-Poor Socio-economic Development in the Niger Delta. Excerpt:
What do you think was responsible for the choice of these development projects of PIND?
Well, there may be a couple of factors but what I can clearly tell you is that, for you to do development work and get it to succeed and affect the people positively, you have to first of all go down to the root cause of the problem. Most times development intervention coming from anybody will be addressing the symptoms and not the root cause. You just wake one day and they say there is cholera and you just start to treat the people through vaccines drugs and all of that. However, why they have the cholera is not being addressed. So after you treat people it will still come back. So in our own intervention strategy, we first of all look at the sector we want to intervene in. what are the things making things not to work well? We look at the market issues and the factors that are making markets not to work. These markets we refer to is not just the market for selling and buying but market for services. Why is stem not available for the farmer when he wants it? Why is the farmer not having access to fertilizer? Why is there a problem for him to get loans to expand his farm? Why is it that when he smokes his fish he does not get a place to sell it? So it is when you look at all these issues and you begin to address them one by one that you can have a very smooth flow and the chain will move in a very orderly manner. If you take one of them and deal with it; oh the people need money and you give them money. You forget the stem is available even if they have the money. The fish feeds they want to buy is not available. So the money becomes almost useless. So it is that whole thing we are looking at when we talk of sector study, when we talk of how to intervene. You first of all find out what the issues are and then you agree on what is going to happen and who is going to do what. So when you begin to address these sectors one after the other, then you begin to talk about how to do development work.
You have identified various value change; the cassava, the oil palm and aquaculture as business linkages, what are some the challenges you have been facing since 2010 since you started?
The challenges have been quite a number. Getting stakeholders to pay attention to developmental strategies is one. In the last couple of years, several development agencies did not want to come here, for obvious reasons and getting them back here is a challenge. We are making progress in that direction. At least at the moment we have several agencies working with us in this region. And for the specific value change you have in cassava, we have quite a large market. But the challenge has been how to cultivate large portions of land. And the reason for that challenge is because the cost of land preparation is very high and it is difficult to that for commercial basis without government intervention. That is another challenge. For aquaculture as an example, we are working seriously with several organizations, consultants, the feed companies and sometimes trying to inculcate in the farmers the culture of how to do it well and how to reduce their cost of production. That is working out very well. But then going forward, even if you achieve high rate of production at very lower cost so that you can compete in the market, there will be a time where there will be a gloat if we do not look at the front end. So what we are trying to do now is looking at the market. How can we add value to the fish such that they can go to packaging and go to export?
From all indication you are shifting emphasis from oil to agriculture, what advice do you have for the youths on this?
You know somebody told us the other day that if you really want to be a multi-billionaire, you cannot do it earning salaries. Dangote is not paid by anybody. Otedola is not paid by anybody; they work for themselves. And in this region there are so many persons that are working hard in spite of the situation we find ourselves. We think that if we encourage young people in activities that will give them money, to take up activities that are very productive, those services that are required by even the oil companies, and they will do much better. It is better to be in the agricultural sector because the potentials are there. The market is there too. So do not forget that the oil sector is employing few persons but the agricultural sector is going to provide a lot of opportunities and our strategies is pro-poor. So if you are talking of how many persons your intervention can pull at the same time; agriculture is just there for it.
I understand that PIND set up different interventions in different communities; can you please tell us what informed these choices?
As you know we are working in nine states of the Niger Delta region and we did sector studies and thorough analysis and we have very good reasons for starting from setting places. For example, in Delta State, just like in Bayelsa, predominantly people are into fishing. So the fish farm we have in Ekpan is informed by that. In Edo state the people are good farmers. They have land and their land is very fertile. So if we are doing cassava like we are doing in Edo State you can understand why. So we take decisions as to locations of projects based on available statistics. When you talk of oil palm production in Nigeria you talk of Imo State and Rivers state. Our first intervention in oil palm is in Oguta area in Ezioso to be precise and if you go there the predominant occupation is palm oil processing and that is why we are there. And it is logical to be there because if we get it right there we will be affecting so many people at the same time.
