kidnapping of farmers: AFAN charges on clearing of forests to increase food supply

By Ezurike Ugochukwu

The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), has called on the federal government to cut down wild forests in the country and convert them to agricultural food production.

The National President, AFAN Arc Kabir Ibrahim, in a release made available to Nation Update decried the abduction of 40 Farmers recently in Zamfara State by gun trotting bandits.

He called for the cutting down of forests to expand the country’s cultivable and irrigable lands, stating that they have constituted safe heavens for the bandits in the north.

He harped on the need for collaboration among the various security agencies in securing the troubled food basket of the North West(NW) of Nigeria were banditry and kidnapping have become an undoing with farmers left to bear the brunt.

Ibrahim expressed the fear that if this continues, there will be collapse in governance, that the country will pay heavily for it.

“Yet again farmers are being kidnapped from my village, Faskari, Katsina State and some neighboring villages in Zamfara State largely because of the continued hiding places offered to the bandits by the thick forests that we are reluctant to bulldoze!

“The incessant kidnappings and general insecurity in the NW and other parts of the country portend a serious threat to our food system,” he said.

To this, he therefore thanked the effort of the government in ensuring security in some of these areas that have become epicenters of banditry and general insecurity, stated that some of the advice given in the past be put to work.

“When I participated in the Ministry of Defence committee(MOD)that toured 5 States comprising Taraba, Benue,Nasarawa, Katsina and Zamfara in 2019 I discovered that there was no synergy between the various security agencies in securing the trouble areas, the forests constituting safe heavens to the bandits had no real economic value to Nigeria and that the restoration of peace and tranquility in all the affected areas was next to impossible as a result of these risk factors.

“Before this time(MOD committee work) and afterwards I wrote propositions about defoliating the forests in Sambisa, Rugu and other places to finally and definitely rid them of these bandits.

“Of course,issues of Climate change and other considerations constitute impediment to this thesis but a mitigation of the resultant effects of this action are also implementable.

The obvious advantage of this defoliation or sectoral removal of these forests is the expansion of our cultivable land and even irrigable land.

The AFN president expressed optimism that peace and security wil, be assured once the forests are bulldozed and turn into cultivable lands.

He sited such examples as Cerrado in Brazil as a clear of what it means to replace turning forests to agricultural use to guarantee food security.

For total stamping out of banditry in the North East and North West, and the country at large, the governor through the governors forum need to dedicate resources towards that as no zone is immune.