The House Committee on Nutrition and Food Security has commenced the probe into insurance coverage for the N1.12 trillion Anchor-Borrowers Scheme.
Recall that the House on Tuesday July, 1, 2025, mandated its Committees on Nutrition and Food Security and Agricultural Production and Services, Agricultural Colleges and Institutions and Finance to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the alleged misuse of government interventions and agricultural funding by departments, agencies, Schemes and Programmes of the federal government outside the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.
However, the Chairman of the committee, Hon. Chike Okafor said the hearing on was continuation of the probe into how the sum of N1.12 trillion meant for the execution of the Anchor Borrowers Programme was allegedly diverted by Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well the disbursement of the fund as carried out by Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).
The representative of the Managing Director of the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Dayo Babaronti said the Corporation only provided cover to 207,514 farmers to the tune of N109 billion under the Anchor-Borrower Scheme.
He added that overall, NAIC only provided 12 per cent coverage for the scheme.
Babaronti revealed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), contrary to the Anchor Borrowers Scheme’s initial policy, under which NAIC was appointed as the sole insurance company to cover participants, contracted two other insurance firms, Veritas Kapital Insurance and Leadway Insurance.
Surprisingly, Veritas Kapital Insurance and Leadway Insurance did not send representatives to the hearing.
Giving a further breakdown of the involvement of NAIC, Babaronti disclosed that Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending ( NIRSAL) Plc’s provided agricultural financing to the tune of ₦250 billion facility to support smallholder farmers across the country, while NAIC only provided cover to the tune of N8,254,175 billion.
NIAC representative said the Corporation only provided N715 million worth of cover for 80 hectares of ginger farms out of the N1.6 billion funding announced for the programme.
On the Bank of Industry, Agro and Food Processor Scheme, Babaronti told the Committee that NAIC was not given any of the participants to provide insurance cover, contrary to the Anchor-Borrower policy.
The chairman of the Committee announced that the panel would be inviting NAIC on a soon-to-be-announced date as the Committee has received many complaints from participants and farmers/commodity associations on the cover provided by the Corporation.
Imagine explained that NAIC sent its submission late on Wednesday giving the Committee limited time to study the documents sent to it by NAIC.
Earlier, Okafor reiterated that the House will uncover all the issues that hampered the successful implementation of Federal Government interventions targeted at improving food production in the country.
He disclosed that preliminary findings by the Committee indicated that stakeholders, especially farmers and farmer/commodity associations, were not involved in designing interventions such as the Anchor-Borrower Scheme, hence the unsatisfactory performance of the programme.