President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Alhaji Alwan Hassan as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Agriculture (BOA).

Until his appointment, Hassan was an erstwhile Executive Director of Bank PHB and he takes over from Kabir Mohammed Adamu, who had been the overseer of the BOA since 2017.

In 2009, Hassan chaired Bank PHB as its Executive Director instituting corporate governance up until 2011 when he set out to establish Mid Range Universal Biz Limited.

Hassan had also worked in the unified public service for 14 years – Kano state government from 1981 to 1989 and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 1990 to 1996.

The new BOA MD is expected to work directly with the bank’s board and management team to implement the transformation reforms needed at the bank.

The BOA, incorporated in 1972 as Nigerian Agricultural Bank (NAB) before it was rebranded as BOA in October 2010, is one of Nigeria’s leading agricultural and development finance institutions.

It is saddled with providing agricultural credit facilities to support all agricultural value chain activities, as well as capacity development via the promotion of co-operatives and agric systems, among others.

However, the BOA, which was established to fiscally back farmers, has failed to live up to its billing in recent years, with capitalization one of the major challenges quaking the institution.

Last year November, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono had revealed that the BOA was in distress, owing to a paucity of efforts in recapitalising the bank.

Nanono said that the best approach was to review the structure of the bank to reorganize and reposition it in order to fast-track its mandate.

With Hassan’s appointment, Nigerians will look forward to a revatilised BOA that would serve the interest of farmers and financially upheave the country’s agricultural sector.

SOURCE: AGRONIGERIA