ActionAid Nigeria has raised alarms over the execution of the wheat component of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme–Agro Pocket (NAGS-AP), revealing that systemic bottlenecks, delayed input supplies, and financial obstacles are crippling the multi-million dollar program’s impact.
The civil society group made the disclosures on Wednesday, 17 June 2026, during a media briefing in Abuja following the release of an independent community scorecard report.
The scathing performance review, compiled by TSJ Consult, evaluated the implementation of the dry-season wheat intervention across the 2023/24 and 2024/25 farming cycles.
Funded by a $134 million facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the NAGS-AP was launched by the Federal Government to break Nigeria’s dangerous 90 per cent dependency on foreign wheat imports.
However, the Deputy Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Mrs Suwaiba Muhammad-Dankabo, stated that an alarming gap has opened between glowing official narratives and the grim realities of rural smallholders, who routinely face late-arriving inputs, inaccessible redemption centres, and rising financial entry blocks.
The research findings explicitly exposed deep operational failure points and allegations of criminal diversion within the supply chain.
Field data verified occurrences of uncertified seed distribution, adulterated agrochemicals being handed to unsuspecting farmers, and systemic delays in clearing payments for genuine agro-dealers due to slow state verification protocols.
Presenting the empirical data, the Team Lead of TSJ Consult, Mr Tunde Salmon, noted that while the intervention yielded a modest 474,628 metric tonnes during the review period, this volume covers a mere one-fifth of the nation’s total wheat demand, keeping the domestic market entirely subservient to volatile international supply chains.
ActionAid has outlined a strict structural roadmap for the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
The organisation is demanding the immediate formulation of a National Wheat Seed Multiplication Strategy, a firm deadline of October for seed distribution, and the deployment of publicly accessible digital tracking dashboards to eliminate corruption.
Furthermore, the coalition called on international lenders, such as the AfDB, to tie future agricultural funds to stringent anti-graft safeguards, while urging state governments to aggressively recruit and deploy female Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) extension agents to protect marginalised women farmers.
Source: The Authorith News
Image Credit: Radio Nigeria
