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Dr. Vincent Isegbe, Director General/ Comptroller General of the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), in this exclusive interview with CHIBUZOR EMEJOR, speaks on a wide range of issues, following his re-appointment by President Bola Tinubu in March 2024. Excerpts:

Congratulations on your re-appointment. Sir, following your re-appointment, President Bola Tinubu, asked you to build on your agency’s recent performance, after it ranked in the top three agencies of government in the efficiency and transparency index by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council. How do you intend to sustain this feat?

Thank you very much. Let me begin by giving the glory to God and also to thank His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, for considering me worthy for the re-ap­pointment as the Director General of the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS).

I see that as an enormous responsibility he has put on my shoulders. I will continue to pledge that I will serve the nation well, by the special grace of God. Concerning our activities here at the NAQS, we run this office according to the mandate of the Agency.

The primary mandate is to ensure that all plants, animals, and aquatic produce or products leaving the shores of Nigeria meet international standards. That is to say that we secure the Nigeria’s agricul­tural economy because we are on the first line of defence.

We ensure that where we export our agricultural produce to, they don’t have issues with us. We also facilitate inter­national trade. For everything, there are rules and regulations. For you to be on top of your game, you must follow rules and regulations.

We have the International Plant Pro­tection Convention (IPPC), and the World Organisation for Animal Health.

The rules that guide animal products and by-products and of course, as an agen­cy of government, we have our own oper­ational system. They enable us to practise what we are supposed to do diligently.

There are standard operating proce­dures. There are professional ethics and guidelines that guide us in whatever we are doing.

So, as long as staff know what they are supposed to do, every system in the Quar­antine runs on the auto. I don’t have to be there, the Zonal Commanders don’t have to be there, the Section Officers don’t have to be there, everybody knows what he or she is supposed to do.

If there is any issue, you revert to your immediate superior to resolve the situa­tion. If he can’t resolve it, it goes to the higher authorities, until it gets to my table.

So, in that case, everybody knows what he is supposed to do. Of course, there may be sudden challenges like outbreak of diseases or some issues coming up that we need to address. So everybody knows what he is supposed to do and we do that. In Quarantine Service, we care for each other. Somebody is on the line of duty; we make measure that we give him effec­tive support and protection to enable him to perform. That is to say that if for any reason, you are not strong enough on a particular day, the second officer fills up the gap. We complement and support each other to succeed. That is how we have been running this place.

This has helped us to achieve the suc­cesses that we have recorded. I remember, in 2018, we were the most improved gov­ernment agency, we were most improved government agency in transparency, today, and we are number three.

In 2024, in the first half of the year Re­port, we were third and fourth in the In­dexes you quoted. This shows consistence in our operations. This puts the onus on us to work harder in achieving the mandate that the government has given us. We will continue to remain consistent in our ser­vice delivery and operational efficiency.

In your second tenure in office, what are the areas you would like to give priority attention?

In this first one year, we are signing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 10 countries.

This year alone we submitted four MoUs. One has been approved during the recent meeting in China.

In the first week of December, the MoU for groundnut, Shell nut, and peanut has been approved and signed.

We have the one for torah, is almost ready. We have the one for aquatic resourc­es, it is also almost ready. In fact, both of them was supposed to have been signed but for technical reason.

I am sure that before the end of the year, the documents will be ready for signing by both governments. That is to say that in a very short while, the export of ground nut, torah seeds, aquatic resources products, and soya bean would have been signed.

For Nigerian agricultural producers of soybean, aquatic resources, torah seeds, they can export as many as China would want them to export.

So, this is an improvement on our ag­ricultural export economy. It will put enormous tasks on us to ensure that these agricultural produce pass through the specified phytosanitary protocols and procedures to ensure that we export those products seamlessly.

We are engaging in massive training of our officers both within and outside. We have the support of Chinese Government, Japan and Korea. They are helping to train our officers overseas.

We sent some on trade facilitation to Tanzania. We send them out every year to boost out trade facilitation team.

We have improved more in our para­military services by instilling ethics and discipline in our activities.

Generally, we want to improve on our stakeholder engagement. We already have the export certification value chain for 30 agricultural commodities under the Quar­antine Service. We are beginning to pick each of them to highlight them so that these commodities will be exported.

You will agree with me that the cost of crude oil is dwindling and the price of oil is not stable; the best we can do is to ensure that we improve on the volume of agricul­tural export. And we have quite a lot we can export from Nigeria.

We have honey, pepper and chilis and so many vegetables. We have roots and tubers, some spices, all these can be ex­ported. Nigerian ginger has one of the best qualities overseas. Miango pepper from Plateau State is one of the hottest you can find around.

We have good cashew nuts and all we need to do is to add value to them to earn some foreign exchange. We are looking at the exportation of fruits.

Our main challenge in that area is how we can export fruits fresh for six hours. Within 6 to 8 hours, we can reach to any country in the world through flights. We are working on that. Those are the areas we want to add value, so that farmers will be able to export them.

In monetary terms, how much did Nigeria generate from the export of some of these commodities in 2023?

I don’t have the statistics of the mone­tary values for each of these commodities, but I can send them to you. But, what I can tell you is that for 2023, we exported over 1,200 containers of hibiscus flower to Mexico. We have other countries like the United States, Europe, where we exported these commodities. We generated tens and millions of US Dollars through the export. We have streamlined our activities. We had issues with them in the past.

Last two years, we went to Mexico to sign agreement and we have resumed ex­port of hibiscus in the last two years. We don’t issues with hibiscus export. None of our export of hibiscus was rejected.

We have consistently been following the laid down procedure for export of ag­ricultural produce outside of the country. For other commodities, you know, we did a lot of programme on export of sesame, cashew nuts, soybean, and some other ag­ricultural produce through China, USA.

By the time, we start the export of aquatic resources such as shrimps to China and Russia. We have the best tons. They are big and very juicy. That is why we see people coming into our coastlines to fish illegally.

But, the Nigerian Navy is working hard to secure our territorial waters. So we have a lot of agricultural produce which we are working on to ensure that we earn revenue through their export.

Some of these agricultural produce; we are yet to achieve self-sufficiency in their produc­tion. Why do we focus on the export of these produce, when Nigeria spends stupendous amount of money in importing them. For in­stance, Nigeria since 1950s has been importing frozen fish. Yet we are talking about the export of aquatic resources. Is it not ironical?

There is always a balance in interna­tional politics and trade.

Nigeria’s population estimate by 2020 Report is about 214million. We need to balance our trade with other countries. China has over a billion in population still imports and exports. So, it is a necessary process in the international trade that importation and exportation of goods go hand in hand. You can never produce all that you need and you may not be able to sell all that you need to sale. It is a matter of demand and supply. Sorry sir, I was saying that in some of these produce being exported by China that they have achieved self-sufficiency. Unlike in Nigeria, where we are unable to achieve that and we are bent on exporting the little we produce here.

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Now, in the global food system as well as International Food Trade, people produce food as survive.

China may be self-sufficient in food pro­duction but still exports food in case of the rainy day. They are able to provide five to ten years of the national need. While they are stockpiling, they will still be buying. It is a matter of national interest.

Take the issue of yam, the yam we export is not ideally the ones we eat. In Nigeria, we have large family size. In over­seas, they have a family size of three to four members, maximum is five. So, they need small, slender 1.8—2.3kg tubers of yam that they can cut and finish at once. But here in Nigeria, a single family can eat two to three tubers of yam to feed the entire family.

Take the case of cassava, the need for cassava is varied.

They either use it for ethanol, high breed cassava for industrial starch or for our local garri. Now, if we are able to pro­duce the variety of cassava that has high yield for ethanol, we can sell it to make money.

Those ones we don’t consume them, be­cause the specific market for it is ethanol. So Nigeria can provide that variety of cas­sava to meet the international need, while we continue to produce the local ones for our local consumption. This is national interest.

But generally, we agree that we have to feed ourselves first before export. But turn the coin the other way round, if you continue feeding yourself, where would you get the money to buy other necessities you don’t have?

The airlines bring in plane for us to trav­el. The boats and vessels we need to travel in our water ways, we don’t produce them, we need to bring them in.

There are some medicines and vaccines we don’t produce, we need to bring them in. so, where are we going to get those for­eign currencies and reserves in order to buy them? This is why that there is need for strategic national planning to export while we continue to increase our produc­tion.

We also advise the reduction in the pop­ulation size to be able to meet the needs of the people and have enough to export. We need to manage our population size, national production size and volume of export. As a nation, it will ensure that our GDP is high.

These are the inter-play between gov­ernment’s fiscal policies and the global international food trade and global food system.

What is the situation with regard to the killing of donkeys in Nigeria, situation that has made the animal to be going into extinct? How the situation improved?

The law says that nobody will give you export permit for wet skin. And how do you get the wet skin if you don’t slaughter? And again, donkeys are becoming endan­gered species for which Nigerians know. If you go to rural areas, you hardly find many donkeys as it used to be in the past.

Mostly of the donkeys are brought in from neigbouring North and Central Af­rican countries.

It will get to the time, we may not see a live donkey, but God forbid. Since donkeys are going into extinct, in 2019, the Quar­antine Service submitted a memo to the National Council On Agriculture and Ru­ral Development, noting that donkeys are going into extinct and suggesting that it should be treated as an endangered species and it was approved.

So, nobody will encourage the slaugh­ter of donkeys in the country today. And government directed that there should be breeding and ranching of donkeys.

The fecundity of donkeys is very low, ie its rate of child birth is very low. You hardly have two foals or young donkeys per pregnancy. It is just like cows.

The scientists will know how to develop them, how to improve on their size and body weight and cut down the period of weaning. When the mother is well-to-do, they will be able to feed the baby very well, she can wean the foal earlier and the moth­er will return to the reproductive circle.

In addition to genetic improvement of the local stock we have, a time will come that we will have enough to be able to skin and sell. If we are going to do that, there is a developed market for donkeys.

There are some countries that all the value chains of donkey are useful. Nigeria will explore that to make the necessary revenue. For now, what government has approved and what Quarantine is encour­aging is breeding and ranching. This is where we are now.

Are Chinese still coming into Nigeria to kill and take away donkey skin?

If anybody is doing that, they are doing it illegally.

We had stakeholders’ meeting for those in donkey business in the North and one for those in the South in 2023.

We told them the best way to go. Any business that is not sustainable is not worth the business.

We told that let assume that we have 5000 donkeys in Nigeria and we end up slaughtering all of them.

It means that donkey business has end­ed. It will get to the point that they will have nothing to do and we told them no, we are the economic end of the agricultural sector. We are involved in trade.

So, we are in the best position to advise government on what to do. This is the way we think and keep donkeys from going into extinction.

Government saw the reason that was the reason breeding and ranching was ap­proved. So that the unborn generation of Nigerians will be able to see a live donkey and those in donkey business will contin­ue doing the business.

We are not stopping there. There are other endangered species which we are encouraging Nigerians to go into. If we allow it to decimate and we don’t generate, it will lead to extinction. We are thinking of parrots, insects, reptiles such as snakes.

We are thinking of collecting venoms from snakes and marketing them for snake farmers. Those who make anti-venom vaccines for snakes, they need to get the live venom before they can produce their vaccines.

So, these are high net worth produce that people have not seriously looked into, which we are encouraging people to go into the business. Even crocodiles, we can grow them for their skin.

We will sell it in the international mar­ket. There are a lot of crocodile’s farms in the country. I know two or three farms. We are not looking at conventional crops or animals.

In view of the enormous responsibility your agency has been saddled with, do you have enough staff strength to carry out your statutory assignments across the length and breadth of the country? Are there other chal­lenges your agency is grappling with?

Yes, we would love to cover all the bor­ders in Nigeria; you know that it is not possible. The periphery of the Nigerian land borders is 4000 and 47kilometres. So, it is not easy to man.

The coastline is 857kiliometres; it is not easy to man. I hope that NAQS will be able to man all the land borders and the coast­lines of Nigeria. You know that it is enor­mous one. I don’t think that any Service today, has all the personnel to man them.

We need staff, just like other agencies, to be able to perform our official operations to 100% level. We don’t have enough staff to perform this. Of course, we are building competencies on the staff we have. So far, in all the reviews and analysis, and all the surveys we have done, we have a good num­ber of NAQS staff, who are Ph.D holders.

Many are still running their Ph.D Pro­grammes, including me and my PSO. I encourage my staff to go back to school. In their areas of specialisation, we have various competencies to ensure service delivery.

The competence of your certification is based on the experience, and qualification of the certified officer. That is why IPPC and World Organisation of Animal Health in every five years, sends audit teams to countries to verify the competencies of their professionals and service delivery.

So, that when we issue certificates, the receiving country will accept that the issu­ing country is competent enough to issue the certificate. So, it is primary for us to have very competent staff and we do have them. We have experienced officers that represented not just Nigeria but the whole of Africa under the IPPC Platform.

In various committees, professional bodies overseas, we are represented. This has helped to position Quarantine Service very well in our operations.