Onome Amuge
Nearly six decades after its creation, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture still does not have a purpose-built corporate headquarters. More strikingly, eight years after the federal government first approved billions of naira for that purpose, the ministry remains scattered across temporary offices, while public funds continue to be committed to new buildings whose completion dates are uncertain. The situation has come to symbolise a deeper governance problem comprising capital planning, poor asset management and a budgeting culture that prioritises fresh approvals over the completion and rationalisation of existing investments.
Created in 1966 and relocated from Lagos to Abuja more than 30 years ago, the agriculture ministry is one of the federal government’s most critical institutions, especially at a time when food inflation, insecurity and climate shocks are threatening livelihoods and macroeconomic stability. Yet the ministry operates from a three-floor building owned by the Federal Capital Territory Administration, with at least four departments forced to operate from offsite locations due to lack of space. For an institution tasked with coordinating national food security policy, the absence of a permanent headquarters reflects administrative fragmentation that undermines efficiency.
In 2018, the ministry appeared poised to resolve this longstanding gap. Under the leadership of the late Audu Ogbeh, then minister of agriculture and rural development, the government approved the purchase of an eight-floor office complex in Abuja’s Central Business District for N7.04 billion. The building, located on Plot 1062 and sitting on 3,754.90 square metres of land, was intended to serve as the ministry’s long-awaited corporate headquarters.
Instead, the transaction quickly descended into controversy. Internal government correspondence later revealed that the building was not only incomplete but had also not undergone mandatory structural and mechanical integrity tests before purchase. In a query dated May 11, 2020,Folasade Yemi-Esan, the then head of the civil service of the federation, accused Mohammed Bello, the supervising permanent secretary, of authorising the acquisition of what she described as an “uncompleted carcass” without statutory approvals from the Federal Capital Development Authority’s public building department.
According to the query, the building required billions of naira to make it safe for occupation. Bello defended the process, stating that the expression of interest was forwarded to the minister and that a memo was taken to the Federal Executive Council, which approved the purchase. Whatever the internal justifications, the outcome was unequivocal, as a N7 billion public asset that could not be occupied and has since remained abandoned, serving mainly as a parking space for ministry buses.
Rather than complete, retrofit or repurpose the existing structure, the federal government opted for a fresh start. In April 2023, the Federal Executive Council approved yet another headquarters project for the same ministry. This time, the plan was for a 10-storey complex dubbed “Agriculture House,” to be constructed on a newly allocated 1.84-hectare plot in Abuja’s Cadastral Zone. The initial approval was for N6 billion, described as a take-off sum.
The explanation for abandoning the earlier building raised further questions. Mohammad Abubakar, the then minister, told journalists that the N7 billion building was inadequate to accommodate all departments of the ministry. He added that the structure would be sold and the proceeds combined with budgetary provisions to finance the new project. To date, however, there is no public evidence that the building has been sold, nor clarity on its current valuation in a weaker property market and amid questions about its structural condition.
What is clear is that the cost of indecision is rising. In the 2026 federal budget, an additional N5.67 billion has been allocated for the construction of the agriculture ministry’s headquarters. This brings total approvals for the new complex to N11.67 billion, excluding the sunk cost of the original N7 billion purchase. Eight years after the first attempt to secure a permanent home, the ministry remains without one, while nearly N19 billion in public funds has either been spent or earmarked for the same objective.
This pattern of spending reflects the proliferation of capital projects without effective completion, disposal or accountability frameworks. According to budget analysts, the federal government routinely initiates new infrastructure projects while older ones remain abandoned, leading to a ballooning stock of non-performing public assets. The agriculture ministry’s headquarters saga stands out not because of its size alone, but because of the contrast between administrative spending and the country’s pressing food security challenges.
The irony is sharpened by the scale of resources flowing to the ministry in 2026. Of the federal government’s proposed N58.18 trillion budget, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and its agencies are set to receive N1.44 trillion. The allocation underscores the central role agriculture plays in the administration’s economic agenda, particularly in addressing inflation, unemployment and rural poverty.
A significant portion of this spending is tied to externally funded programmes. The Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ), financed by the African Development Bank, will consume N126.02 billion in 2026 alone. The initiative, championed by Akinwumi Adesina, a former agriculture minister and AfDB president, aims to move Nigeria up the agricultural value chain by clustering processing, logistics and power infrastructure around farming hubs. Similarly, the IFAD-funded Value Chain Development Project is budgeted at N37.5 billion, while the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project will receive N4.61 billion.
These programmes are widely regarded as structurally important, particularly in shifting Nigeria away from raw commodity exports. However, they also raise concerns about absorptive capacity and coordination, especially when the supervising ministry itself lacks a consolidated operational base. Development finance experts note that weak institutional infrastructure can undermine the effectiveness of even well-designed, donor-backed projects.
Beyond the large multilateral loans, the 2026 budget reveals a proliferation of smaller line items that have attracted scrutiny. The ministry plans to spend N3.5 billion on the Renewed Hope Initiative, without clear details on its scope or measurable outcomes. There is also a N1.05 billion allocation for the construction of internal roads at the Federal Polytechnic, Nyak-Shendam in Plateau State, a project whose linkage to core agricultural productivity is not immediately evident.
More contentious is the repetition of grain supply projects across multiple budget lines and regions. Several entries allocate identical sums of N1.05 billion for the provision or supply of grains to different geopolitical zones, often with overlapping descriptions. Analysts warn that such duplication complicates oversight and raises the risk of inefficiency or misallocation, especially in a system where project monitoring remains weak.
Taken together, these spending patterns point at a ministry stretched between ambitious national mandates and unresolved internal governance issues. While billions are being committed to food reserves, tractors, rural roads and digital dashboards, the institution responsible for coordinating these efforts operates from borrowed space and manages a growing portfolio of abandoned or incomplete capital assets.
Economists argue that the problem is not simply one of corruption or waste, but of incentives. In Nigeria’s public sector, initiating new projects often carries more political and bureaucratic capital than completing or rationalising existing ones. Budget cycles reward visibility and geographic spread, not lifecycle cost management. As a result, ministries accumulate unfinished projects that quietly depreciate while fresh approvals are sought.
For a country facing high debt servicing costs, constrained revenues and acute social pressures, the opportunity cost is considered significant. The N7 billion tied up in an unusable building, and the additional billions committed to a replacement, could have funded irrigation schemes, extension services or storage facilities with immediate impact on food supply and prices.
As lawmakers prepare to scrutinise the 2026 budget, the agriculture ministry’s headquarters saga offers a concrete test of the government’s stated commitment to fiscal discipline and value for money. Without clearer answers on the fate of the abandoned building, the timeline for the new headquarters and the rationale behind proliferating budget lines, the risk is that capital spending will continue to prioritise motion over outcomes.
In a period when food security is seen as a national emergency, the inability of the agriculture ministry to put its own house in order has become more than an administrative footnote. It is a warning that without institutional reform, even record budgetary allocations may fail to deliver the stability Nigerians are promised.
When applause travels faster than hunger