Nigeria’s Bank of Agriculture: An Agenda for Organizational Renewal

Abstract

Bank of Agric (BoA) was establish as a special purpose specialized financial institution to provide agricultural loans to deserving customers as a way to promoting access to affordable credit facilities to segments of the Nigerian society that have little access to the services of conventional banks while accepting savings deposits from customers and encouraging banking habits at the grass-roots. However, the performance of the bank has been below expectation because it has not fulfilled purpose. In a country like Nigeria of N200 million population, where agriculture currently provides about 54 per cent of employment and the quest for economic resilience and sustainability is further driving diversification into agribusiness, improving access to agricultural credit, is imperative. It is against this background that the need to reposition the bank becomes necessary. It is recommended that the bank be partially privatised for access to increased / private capital, while its operations should be modernized and computerized to improve customer convenience and operational efficiency.