During the electioneering campaign, I toured many fishing communities of Ibi and Dampar, I witnessed first hand how our people fish to make a living. I wrote about my encounter with someone telling me how they have to depend on yearly flood to replenish the rivers, lakes and ponds with fishes that have been depleted over the previous fishing year.

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I took time to understudy how the fish value chain works, from those selling the fishing gears such as Nets, hooks and accessories to artisans constructing the nets and hooks to make them ready for use, to the canoe maker, then the fishermen, to those processing it by way of smoking and drying, and finally the various class of traders involved in either selling fresh or smoked fish. I noticed how the money flows from one end to the other and everyone taking a share of it to meet their day to day needs for food, shelter, clothing, catering for their kids school needs and healthcare.

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It tells you of how this industry has been helping people survive despite the unavailability of what we call “government support” for jobs or even the support in terms of training, financing for the business.

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This is a sector that has seen no interventions and no improvement over the years, in spite of all the various agricultural intervention programmes. Despite having some civil servants working in the fisheries departments either at the state or federal level and the increasing number of graduates of fisheries,  the fish sector remained unchanged. For those who living in the urban areas, they have found a way of rearing fish through aquaculture using constructed ponds with artificial feed sources. These are the category of those we can say have been impacted by fisheries graduates and the advancements so far.


It is a well known fact that wild fishing still contributes significantly to our fish need for protein despite having no government support. The industry is responsible for sustaining our rural population with jobs and income for their day to day needs. Even though I have no data to back this up, I can tell you for a fact that communities along the various Rivers, ponds and lakes in Taraba state depend on fishing to survive
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Today, fishing has gone way above what we are still practicing in our communities, which hasn’t changed from what our forefathers had once practiced. Notwithstanding the advancements in fish technology, techniques and tools, we are of no difference with fishing 80 years ago.


As more and more species continue to disappear from our Rivers, there are no measures being put in place to curtail over fishing, preserving fish species and also restocking the rivers, lakes and ponds for that our people can continue to depend on such an industry for survival for the long run.


Moving forward, it is important for government to take a look again at fresh water fish policy, the regulations for fishing in public water bodies like rivers, lakes and ponds, need to be enforced to safeguard the future of the fish industry.
Secondly, since aquaculture as currently being practiced using earth, concrete or polythene ponds seems expensive for rural fishermen, new fishing methods such as cage fish or floating fish farm is a sustainable way that can be easily adopted by our fish entrepreneurs in rural communities. This method require no borehole or external source of water than the water in the existing natural water bodies.


Floating fish farm or cage has been in practice in many countries even in Africa and close to us is Ghana. It has proven to be sustainable and can be easily adapted by rural folks. This way, the government can set up Fish hatcheries and nurseries along the various fishing communities and employ graduates of fisheries to hatch, nurse and sell various fish species for breeding in floating farms. Despite our abundant fresh water resources, fresh water fish like tilapia is being imported into Nigeria, creating jobs for fishermen in China, Thailand and leaving our own with age long practices that continues to live them in poverty.

This way, more attention will be given to breeding, research and improvement of the fishing industry as a whole.