NIRSAL Under Aldulhameed now the highest employer of Labour: By: Amb. Bappare Mohammed

Successive governments in Nigeria has promised and make pronouncement of Job creations with a strong believe that only Job creators can survive the current Generation of today as against the background of Job seakers. President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to 2 Million jobs every year which many Nigerians especially from the opposition perceived as an illusion.In five (5) years of leading NIRSAL from 23 December 2015, Aliyu Abdulhameed has built NIRSAL from near-zero to a position of national, continental and global recognition as an authority in agricultural risk management financing and Aliyu’s 5-year Scorecard gives an account, across various performance dimensions, of how he has led NIRSAL to challenge the status quo, ask the tough questions and design game-changing systems and solutions for agricultural risk management, value chain development and financing. The results are obvious in terms of:

The first five years of President Muhammadu Buhari has yielded the very positive results and has equally suppased the expectations of many including the opposition because of the President wide range of thinking to bring in the likes of Aliyu  Aldulhameed into his Government to lead the most widely industry in the nation Economy. His appointment as Managing Director and Cheif Executive officer of NIRSAL was one the best of Muhammadu Buhari Government because of the positive impact and the results it has yielded to the country particularly the youths. It has taken wide range of youths out of poverty and unemployment is gradually becoming a read history on the pages of Nigerian media.

The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL Plc.) is a US$500million Non-Bank Financial Institution wholly-owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) created to Redefine, Dimension, Measure, Re-Price and Share agribusiness-related credit risks in Nigeria.It was establish in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and Nigerian Bankers’ Committee in 2013, NIRSAL’s mandate is to stimulate the flow of affordable finance and investments into the agricultural sector by de-risking the agriculture & agribusiness finance value chain, fixing agricultural value chains, building long-term capacity, and institutionalizing incentives for agricultural lending through its five  strategic pillars, namely: Risk Sharing, Insurance, Technical Assistance, Incentives and Rating.

Nigeria has been a country of sound policies and programs that for long lacks practicals which suffered huge deficit of improper management and implementation. These are all triumph as the growing corruption in the Politics and our economy where none appointments are subjected to personal acquittance over competency.The appointment of Aliyu Abdulhameed has change the narratives as Director and Chief Executive officer of NIRSAL in the last five years as the rantings now in all part of the country is that Aliyu is a job creator and he has change the perception of the Nigerian youths to grow their minds beyond job seekers to employers of labour.

Aliyu Abdulhameed was appointed as Managing Director/CEO of NIRSAL Plc, a wholly-owned corporation of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), created in 2013 to stimulate the flow of affordable finance and investments into the agricultural sector by de-risking the agribusiness finance value chain, fixing agricultural value chains, building long-term capacity, and institutionalizing incentives for agricultural lending. He initiated and  facilitated 510 billion worth of Economic Activity with over 515 000 direct jobs created across the agricultural value chain.

He has Funded in the sum NGN145 billion has been facilitated to various actors for mechanization activities, input distribution, and the production, processing, trading and marketing of agricultural commodities from various sources. Abdulhameed has grown the NIRSAL CRG as a symbol of trust for lenders and investors. Over 26 financial institutions are using the NIRSAL Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG) instrument to minimize possible losses in financing agribusinesses. Because of NIRSAL’s solutions, commercial banks have pledged to provide an additional NGN160 billion to fund agriculture, provided the NIRSAL guarantee and its structured approaches are in place

·The adoption of optimized models and risk management tools by actors in agricultural value chains and agriculture finance.Finance and investment facilitated for agricultural value chain actors are jobs created and sustained  and lives positively impacted.In addition, Aliyu has shown a sharp business acumen and stewardship having grown NIRSAL’s balance sheet, strengthened its financial position and built strong organizational capacity in the form of people, processes, systems and structures.His achievements cut across the following key performance areas:

. Facilitating Agribusiness Finance and Investment

.Facilitating Agricultural Insurance

 .Agricultural Value Chain Development 

.Guarantee Portfolio and Project Risk Management 

.Financial Growth and Stewardship 

.Organisational Capacity Development

. Impact in Nigeria, Africa and the Globe.

Aliyu’s achievements in the leadership of NIRSAL and the game-changing, sustainable interventions introduced are visible and attested to by serious-minded actors in the local and international agricultural value chain and agriculture value chain finance spheres.Five years after,he has is able to achieved countless and different phases of results but below are highlights of his stewardship so that readers will brain will polish that in Nigeria we have leaders in different fora who has making a difference.

He has Facilitated Agribusiness Finance and Investments. Through innovative approaches and instruments aimed at eliminating risks associated with agriculture NIRSAL, under the leadership of Aliyu Abdulhameed has successfully assuaged the fears of financiers and investors in bringing in finance and investments into agriculture and agribusiness.NIRSAL has trained over 2,600 staff of financial institutions and engaged with 17 Bank Management Credit Committees for capacity building, joint product development, and bottom-up and top-down engagements for financing commitments.The rate of bank lending to agriculture has risen from 1.4% at inception to 4.49% as of December 2019.Facilitating Agricultural Insurance.Under the leadership of Aliyu Abdulhameed, NIRSAL has moved the Nigerian agriculture sector from indemnity-based to Index-based Insurance as a major sector risk management strategy.

This is attributable to the influx of the private sector with up to nine (9) private insurance companies adopting NIRSAL’s innovative index-based agricultural insurance products whereas, agricultural insurance was previously handled mainly by NAIC only given the dearth of viable and innovative products before NIRSAL stepped in.He has Within two years of intervening in agricultural insurance, from 2017 to 2019, the number of smallholder farmer subscriptions to agricultural insurance rose exponentially to 1.8 million with the NIRSAL Area Yield Index Insurance (AYII) accounting for ~70% of total subscriptions.

Agricultural Value Chain Development

In the last 5 years, the Abdulhameed-led NIRSAL has excelled at developing and rolling out concepts, agribusiness models and frameworks for upgrading, integrating and fixing Nigeria’s broken agricultural value chains following systematic and technology-driven approaches.Guarantee Portfolio and Project Risk Management NIRSAL demonstrates risk management acumen and builds trust by developing and deploying robust risk management tools and technologies.

NIRSAL introduced the Agro Geo-Cooperative concept for structuring farmers with proper governance structures and aggregating their farmlands into contiguous stretches of 250 hectares each.So far, 2,743 agro geo-cooperatives have been formed by NIRSAL covering 600,000 hectares and over 408,000+ farmers which are being presented to the Central Bank of Nigeria and other financiers for funding of primary production (farming) activities.Over 700,000 farmers have been trained by NIRSAL on good agronomic practices and financial literacy.

· Using satellite-based multispectral imaging, Agricultural Commodity Ecological Area (ACEA) mapping of 18 priority commodities have been completed by NIRSAL and validated by research institutes.

A Mapping to Market (M2M) Strategy has been developed by NIRSAL and is enforced across all supported agricultural transactions to ensure effective linkages to adequate input and output markets. 16 innovative agribusiness models have been developed for optimized value chain operations on various agricultural commodities and are being demonstrated by NIRSAL and adopted by the private sector and other actors.

Abdulhameed’s leadership has recovered 88% of all claims paid under the NIRSAL CRG since inception and recovered 51% of legacy ABP loans; Despite inheriting a Non-Performing Loan (NPL) portfolio of 7.2% in 2015, which was higher than the industry average at the time, NIRSAL now maintains a less than 1% Non-Performing Loan portfolio, compared to 6% average rate currently obtainable across the banking industry.This feat is a result of robust credit risk management practices and effective loan recovery strategies introduced by Abdulhameed.

The NIRSAL PMRO service is subscribed to on over 235 agricultural value chain projects and by 15 financial institutions nationwide. 5)    Organizational Development

Building NIRSAL as a successful and sustainable organization that makes a great impact has been a key goal for Aliyu Abdulhameed NIRSAL, formerly a project office at the CBN, is now structured into 20 strategic and operational business units for the delivery of its mandate.Coming out of the CBN with a team of three (3) core staff, NIRSAL is now fully manned with 255 core staff, 546 project monitoring, reporting and remediation officers nationwide to deliver its corporate objectives.

· NIRSAL now operates from 40 physical offices across all the States of the Federation and the FCT.

The organisation adopts internationally recognized methodologies and standards tailored to its unique operations as applicable, including the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for financial reporting;  Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Methodology for strategic and performance management; Projects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) for project and programme management and benefits realization; and Concept-Plan-Project-Results (CPPR) Framework for results-based management.

6)    Impact in Nigeria, Africa and the Globe 

Under Abdulhameed’s leadership, NIRSAL has made commendable sustainable economic, social and environmental impact in Nigeria and is expanding its influence and outreach to Africa and the globe.

Estimated NGN510billion worth of economic activity generated;

·515,000+ Direct Employment created/sustained;

·3million+ Nigerian lives positively impacted; ·        Promotion of climate-smart agriculture models, enablers and practices;

.Facilitation of climate finance for agricultural value chain actors; Discussions with Morocco, Germany, France, etc. on foreign investments and de-risking interests.

.Establishment of a Risk Sharing Facility for the Government of Togo with overtures from Angola, Gabon, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, etc. NIRSAL performs comprehensive project monitoring of all supported projects as a critical risk management strategy leveraging its 37 operational Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation Offices (PMRO) across the 36 States and the FCT covering 774 local government areas as well as its field ICT monitoring technologies.

NIRSAL has become the centre of the nation driven economy as a result of residence and commitment of Abdulhameed who outstanding performance  has placed Nigeria in the frontline as the fastest growing economy through small scale business in the eyes of the world .We should learn as the youths to take the message of glorious performance and reliability in Service of some Nigerians outside for the world to see that as it is Nigeria has great minds like Abdulhameed that the nation can lean on as far as sound microeconomic is concern. His policies has taking millions of Nigerians off the street believing that as times goes and with him in place certainly unemployment will in Nigeria will be only a history to left for the unborn generations to read on our archive that once upon a time Nigeria was an unemployed nation but the Youths who are working population were rescued by Abdulhameed by making them to be employers of labour.

Today it has been on records since the return of democracy in 1999 there is no single Sector that has brought as many development projects like NIRSAL which is attributed to the leadership of Aliyu Abdulhameed.This has brought so much consistent in the nation Economy and we are hoping, praying and wishing that such personalities must be retain and expand his appointment beyond NIRSAL as Nigerians will really appreciate this opportunity.

Ambassador Bappare Mohammed 

Convener Northern Youth Consultative initiative.

Writes From Adamawa State.