Nigeria, March 6 -- Abubakar Garba was about to go out for his routine activities under the morning scorching sun last October when he saw a convoy of vehicles drive into his village.

Mr Garba, who is the village head of Musarin-Fulani in Kaugama Local Government Area of Jigawa State, soon realised that the visitors were officials of the state government.

The community rarely received such visitors, so he was excited when they told him they were around to select people in the village to benefit from an agricultural empowerment programme of the government.

"The process was transparent, it was carried out at the village square. That saved us (the community leaders) from accusations of partiality in the selection of the beneficiaries. We ...