CHRICED Applauds Kano State’s Fertilizer Distribution and Calls for Social Protection Policy

The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) applauds the Kano State Government for its commendable social intervention program, distributing one billion Naira worth of fertilizers to 52,800 smallholder farmers across the 44 local government areas of the state for free. Additionally, the decision to procure another 5 billion Naira worth of fertilizers to be sold at a subsidized rate is praiseworthy. The choice to source fertilizers from the state-owned Kano Agricultural Supply Company (KASCO) is a positive step towards creating job opportunities for the youth and keeping the funds within the state’s economy. These interventions are crucial, especially in light of the widespread hunger caused by the Federal government’s policies.

As the father of the state, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf is setting new records for citizen-focused interventions. In the last year, the Kano state government has made tackling poverty and inequality a central focus of its social protection program targeting women, people with disabilities, smallholder farmers, and start-up businesses. Some of the initiatives include distributing empowerment packages to two thousand people with disabilities across the 44 LGAs, a N50,000 empowerment package to 465 street hawkers in the Kano metropolis, and the distribution of N50,000 monthly cash transfers to indigent women in the state. Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf has indicated that the transfer would run throughout his tenure to benefit women across Kano’s forty-four local government areas. The governor flagged off the disbursement of five million naira to 43 entrepreneurs as start-up capital. There are indications of partnership talks with the government of Canada to roll out an initiative to transform the role of women in agriculture value chains in Kano State. 

According to Nigeria’s Multidimensional Poverty Index, in 2022, 63% or 133 million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor, with the northern region recording 86 million poor people. According to the MPI, Kano has the largest absolute figure, at over 10 million. The report also confirmed that poor people mostly reside in rural areas. 

The current multidimensional poverty index in Kano state constitutes an emergency, and the recent interventions by the state government are timely. The various interventions offer reprieve and hope to indigent poor households. However, uncoordinated, one-off interventions are not likely to achieve a systemic reduction in poverty. The governor and his team stand a better chance at systematically reducing poverty in the state by institutionalizing his social protection interventions. To achieve this, the governor must urgently consider working with civil society actors, development partners, and the state legislature to establish proper plans for a comprehensive, inclusive, and measurable Kano state social protection policy framework. Next, the state governor must immediately commence work to update and improve the integrity of the state’s social register and insist on using the register as the central data for targeting and distributing his social interventions. A comprehensive social policy program will steer the entire Governor Yusuf-led administration in a predictable direction and help the governor achieve his full campaign promise to the good people of Kano state. Coupled with an inclusive social register, it would ensure that the most in need, identified as living in rural areas, are not left out of his vision to tackle poverty and make democracy work for people experiencing poverty. The absence of a social protection policy and a functional, trusted social register increases the risk of ‘politicization’ in the governor’s interventions. Therefore, it is in the governor’s best interest to prioritize a social protection policy for the state and invest in an open, transparent, credible social register as the state’s databank for social program planning and implementation.

We urge the government to prioritize transparency, accountability, equity, and distributive justice in the implementation of the numerous interventions recently embarked upon and to immediately consider a social protection policy framework for the state to institutionalize the governor’s good intentions to tackle poverty and inequality in the state. It is essential to prevent politicians and businessmen from exploiting the distribution process for personal gain. Working with the media, credible civil society organizations, and community organizations will ensure integrity and fairness in the distribution process. Furthermore, it is imperative to include traditionally marginalized groups such as women, youths, and persons with disabilities in the design and implementation of distribution frameworks, as well as monitoring and evaluation plans.

The government must ensure that the N1 billion fertilizers distribution initiative recently announced reaches peasant smallholder farmers and other target audiences. To achieve this, we urge the Kano state government to work with an up-to-date record of farmers in the state and an updated social register, allowing the distribution agency to select the intervention’s target beneficiaries using empirical and evidence-based criteria. It is also critical for the government to prioritize farmers in remote and hard-to-reach areas to ensure that they also benefit from the scheme.

While applauding the government for this noble initiative, CHRICED would like to reiterate the fact that poverty in Kano state, like every other state in Nigeria, is at an epidemic level, and Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf can write his name in history by prioritizing a social protection policy and tracking framework to ensure his interventions hit the bullseye and contributes to poverty eradication in Kano state. Given the size of the poor people in the state, the recent announcements amount to scratching the problem on the surface; a comprehensive social policy program is a critical catalyst for poverty eradication and tackling inequality in the state. At CHRICED, we are excited by the governor’s renewed energy to make governance work for the poor.

As an organization committed to social justice and making democracy work for all, CHRICED looks forward to working with the governor, relevant state agencies, and departments on this critical task. We are ready to provide technical support, advocacy, and monitoring to ensure the success of these interventions and the realization of our shared goal of a poverty-free Kano State.