Land grabs also a threat – AFAN
By Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, Abuja, Oyibo Salihu, Lokoja, Abdulraheem Aoudu, Kaduna and Mohammed Yangida, Lafia
There is an increasing security threat to plan by the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to diversify the nation’s economy from oil to agriculture, as farmers across the country have become kidnappers’ targets.
Similarly, activities of cattle rustlers, the serial Fulani herdsmen/farmers attacks, and the insurgency in the North-east, are also some of the factors that could militate against the drive towards making agriculture the nation’s cash cow.
The menace, according to Blueprint findings, is putting the nation at the risk of famine and hunger, “because farmers now fear to go and do their legitimate occupation for fear of being kidnapped or out rightly killed.”
High profile farmers like former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Olu Falae and a former Minister of Education, Senator Iyabo Anishulowo, were variously abducted by kidnappers on their way to the farm.
While Falae was kidnapped in October 2015 in Akure, Ondo state, Anishulowo was abducted April 2016, between Sawonjo and Imaseyi junction in Yewa North Council Area of Ogun state, just one kilometre to her farm. The incident happened about four months after that of Falae.
Although the two were lucky to be rescued by security agents, the situation has, however, become worrisome as professional farmers now dread going to the farm.
Farmers displaced
According to reports, the development has led to the displacement of thousands of farmers, who, not only lost their farmland, but also the produce, conservatively estimated to be in the region of billions of naira.
Experts posited that a sharp decline in quantity of farm produce is expected this season on account of the number of dislodged farmers, even as hundreds of cows have been lost to rustlers.
Our investigations revealed that many farming communities have been displaced in the insurgency-affected states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa due to the activities of Boko Haram fighters.
For instance, thousands of residents who, otherwise would have engaged in farming activities in these states, are still in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps dotting the landscapes.
Cattle rustling
Activities of cattle rustlers in Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, Kano and Kaduna states, have similarly caused displacement of several villages, leading to the launching, last week, of a special squad by President Muhammadu Buhari to fight these miscreants.
Kidnappers on the prowl
Also, kidnappers are on the prowl in some communities of Kogi state over the last three years, with quite a huge number of large, medium and small scale farmers falling victims.
In Benue, attacks on Agatu and other settlements by suspected marauding herders, has sent hundreds of farmers out of their farms in the state with an appellation of the nation’s Food Basket.
Farmers and experts who spoke with our correspondents say the development is bound to endanger food security as farming activities are drastically curtailed.
Farmers narrate ordeal
A peasant farmer in Adogo, Ajaokuta Local Government Area of the state, Malam Usman Aliyu, narrated his ordeal in the hands of kidnappers who picked him and his son up on the farm, which is about a kilometre away from the town. The abductors demanded a N500, 000 ransom.
Aliyu claimed that when it was obvious to the kidnappers, after two days of his abduction, that his family could not afford to pay the sum, he was released but his son, Suleiman was still held hostage.
“When I was released to go home and raise the money, I went round my family members and gathered only N120,000 which I took to them before they released my son after ten days in the kidnappers’ den,” he recalled.
The farmer said, “Since that scenario, I don’t have any option than to abandon my farm, until two months ago when the state Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello waded into the heinous activities of the hoodlums with a view to flushing them out.”
Another farmer at Itobe in Ofu Local Government Area of the state, Mr. Simeon Itodo Yusuf, recalled his experience February this year, when three men whisked him away from his farm where he had gone to harvest watermelon, to an unknown destination.
The hoodlums, according to him, used his cell phone to communicate with his wife, demanding a N5 million ransom.
Mr. Yusuf, a retired prison officer, noted that after five days in the kidnappers den without response from his wife, the abductors released him and since then, he had not gone back to the farm.
However, these are few out of several farmers that have abandoned their farms for fear of being abducted for ransom, according to findings by Blueprint correspondent.
The kidnappers’ activities which cut across the three senatorial districts of the state had discouraged people from engaging in farming.
Others killed
Also, an evening raid on Gurguzu village, a suburb of Rigasa in Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna state, left four farmers killed and six others injured.
Not less than 500 people from the village are presently displaced and taking refuge at a primary school in Rigasa.
Effect on food prices
The shortage of farm produce has already started affecting prices of food stuff, according to market survey conducted by Blueprint. The survey revealed a drastic hike in the prices of major food items ranging from rice to yam as well as ingredients.
For instance, at the Utako Market in Abuja, buyers lamented general hike in prices of food stuff with some items going up by 100 percent within the last two months.
A small measure of beans now sells for N400 from N300, previously. Local rice has jerked up from the former price of N250 to N420, while the imported one is now N500 from the previous N400. A basket of fresh pepper that sold at N600 now goes for N1200.
‘It will affect diversification’
Commenting on the development, the immediate past president, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) and Chairman Senate Committee on Agriculture, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, who described the security threats as worrisome, said the trend would have adverse effects on government’s desire to harness agriculture as alternative source of income.
Senator Adamu said, insecurity “is definitely affecting agricultural production. Because if a farmer cannot tilt his land, cannot have a guarantee of sorts that he is safe on his land and that he is under threat of survival or that cattle would be brought to graze on his farm and therefore destroy his crops, obviously that will cause very negative impact on the farming activity of the farmer.”
Speaking in similar vein, his successor, Alhaji Kabiru Ibrahim, lamented that the trend has sent a significant chunk of his members off the farm, adding that the fear of what has happened to some farmers has also scared others away.
“It is worrying how people are forced to abandon their lands by kidnappers and other criminals who now follow their victims to the bushes. Another worrying trend that affect our farmers especially in the South, is land grab which has dispossessed many farmers of their lands,” he said. Also speaking on the economic implication of the threatening insecurity, a retired civil servant based in Kabba/Bunu Local Government of Kogi state, Mr. Joseph Adeyemi Peters, said many people are no longer interested in farming because of the fear of kidnappers.
He noted that long before the present security challenges, by June, farm produce usually arrived the markets.
“Now, we are in July, but there is virtually nothing in the market due to farmers inability to attend to their farms as at when due as a result of threat by serial abduction of farmers,” Peters said.
The grim picture of insecurity in Kogi state has, however, prompted the state governor Alhaji Yahaya Bello to seek Federal Government’s attention on the plight of the people of the state.
The governor’s effort has started yielding the desired result as many kidnappers have been apprehended through the superior fire power of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, deployed to the state recently by the acting Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris to combat the crime and its perpetrators.
Farmers/herders clash
In Nasarawa, cattle rustling activities forced many large scale farmers around Keffi and its environs to evacuate their herds, following the loss of a number of livestock to rustlers.
Our correspondent reports that a 70-year-old foreigner, Mr. Williams Chain, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in his farm, Sabon Gida in Kokona Local Government Area of the state, before he was eventually rescued by the police.
Leader of the farmers in the state, Sarkin Noma, Alhaji Aliyu Usman, bemoaned the spate of clashes between herders and farmers “which is bound to happen because the two parties are going in the same line.”
A Fulani community leader in the state, Ardo Lawal Dono, blamed the cattle rustling activities on marauders from neighbouring Kaduna state, adding, however, that they were always intercepted by Fulani vigilance group who had been mobilised as a counterforce.
Rescue mission
Last week, the Minister of Interior, General Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), announced plan by the federal government to create a special section within the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps to guard major farms and farming communities against kidnappers and cattle rustlers.
“We are working with the Ministry of Agriculture to create a special force in the Civil Defence that will protect agricultural investments and products,” Dambazau stated.
