The Federal Government has inaugurated a new 10-member Board of Directors for the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), charging members to work with integrity and diligence in advancing the institution's mandate. The board was sworn in Friday at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security's Abuja headquarters by Minister Senator Abubakar Kyari, on behalf of President Bola Tinubu. Kyari described the exercise as part of a broader effort to reposition the bank as the primary vehicle for overhauling Nigeria's agricultural financing and food security architecture. He traced BOA's origins to its 1972 founding as the Nigerian Agricultural Bank in Kaduna, noting that despite several structural changes over the decades, its core mandate of financing farmers, cooperatives and agribusinesses has remained constant. The minister said Tinubu has approved the bank's recapitalization, calling it the most ambitious government commitment to agricultural finance in Nigeria's history, with the restructuring being jointly supervised by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, the Ministry of Finance Incorporated and the Central Bank of Nigeria as shareholders. "Food security is your founding mandate. Access to capital is the reason you exist," Kyari told the board, stressing that credit disbursed to farmers and processors should be "appraised on merit and recovered with discipline." The board is chaired by Alhaji Muhammad Babangida, with Ayodeji Oludare Sotinrin serving as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Other members include Hajiya Fatima Garba as Executive Director of Corporate Services, Hakeem Oluwatosin Salami as Executive Director of Operations and Information Technology, and Ka'amuna Ibrahim Khadi as Executive Director of Risk Management, alongside five non-executive directors. Kyari urged the board to align BOA's operations with major federal agricultural initiatives, including the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, the IFAD-supported Value Chain Development Programme and the World Bank-backed AGROW initiative, while maintaining strict governance standards and leaving day-to-day management to the executive team. Responding on behalf of the board, Babangida pledged strategic oversight anchored on integrity, transparency and accountability, saying the board's success would be measured not only by financial performance but by its impact on farmers' livelihoods. Sotinrin added that the bank intends to expand access to affordable agricultural credit, accelerate digital transformation and strengthen its role as Nigeria's leading agricultural development finance institution.