Killing of farmers and destruction of farmlands: major causes of food shortage in Nigeria

By EDISON Okereke

Nigerians are in dire need of foods.

But security challenges and government’s attitude to agriculture are dealing them particularly underhand blows. And the hasty removal of subsidy on fuel added to the escalating prices of the food items.

Just very recently Enugu State Graduate Farmers (ESGF) cried blue murder over the deliberate destruction of their farmland, at Ojoloko Farm Site, at Umuiba Nara in Nkanu Local Government Area of the state, with a newspaper headline: “Rice farmers lament herdsman’s destruction of 35,000 hectares of farmland in Enugu.”

According to the report, published on the front page of Daily Nigerian Horn of Wednesday, January 31, 2024, “Some farmers in Enugu State said on Tuesday (30/01/2024) that cattle destroyed all their investments in the farmland, running into billions of naira.

The farmers cried out that the Sterling Bank that lent them the money had been chasing them for repayment.

ESGF president, Patrick Mba explained in tears that the herdsmen would go to the farm at every harvest, eat up their rice and set others on fire.

“ESGF has lost billions of naira, and up till Tuesday, January 30, Sterling Bank has been chasing some of them around because they owe them.”

The farmers were trained by the former governor of the state, Sullivan Chime.

“We cultivated 35,000 hectares of rice out of the 50,000 allocated to us, both certified seed and paddy rice, since 2020; and in 2021, we borrowed money and did the farming, but when we were about to harvest, cows ate 80 per cent of the rice.

Other farmers who were also victims of the destruction, Chukwudinka Ezeihu and Emeka Ugwuja corroborated Mba’s story.

“Since 2020 we started, we have lost all that we planted worth N1.5 billion, but this year’s experience was much,” Mba said.

As Ezeihu put it, “This year alone we have lost billions of naira. How do we repay people who invested their money in the business?

“Government should please chase those herders from the agrarian community as our means of livelihood have been affected.”

The value of his crops there wasted was more than N10 million.

If this is not wickedness and deliberate action, what is it?

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of security.

Beyond any other inconsistencies in any government’s policies, dear reader, the number one cause of food shortage in Nigeria is insecurity. Number two is government’s attitude to agriculture. For many years, the major source of the country’s food has been subsistence, not mechanised farming. So about 70% of Nigeria’s food produce is cultivated by local farmers.

Unfortunately, both the state and the federal governments have been paying lip service to agriculture.

That notwithstanding, these subsistence farmers have been experiencing deaths in the hands of strange elements. Women farmers also experience rape and/or deaths.

Statistically, farmers have been experiencing pogrom in the hands of herdsmen in the country. Our daily, electronic and social media are awash with gory headlines of herdsmen’s persistent atrocious rape and killing of farmers across the land.

Three years ago, on February 13, 2021, Sahara Reporters noted that since 2015 till sometime along the line, herdsmen had killed 400 farmers in South West.

In October 2018, Wikipedia has it that herdsmens-farmer conflict in Nigeria claimed 73 lives, 50 villages razed.”

The Channels Television once reported: “Soldier, 24 others killed in Taraba farmers-herders’ crisis.”

During governor Samuel Ortom’s administration in Benue State, the following number of farmers were sent to their untimely deaths as reported by ICIR: “Death toll from herdsmen’s attacks in Benue 174 deaths in 2019; 88 in 2020; 2,131 in 2021; 172 deaths in 2022.”

In 2023, the figures were still alarming. On June 29, 2023, News reported, “100 farmers killed in six months.”

In seven years, between 2015 and 2022, the Leadership News chronicled Benue State’s Emergency Agency (SEMA) report “Herdsmen killed 5,138 Benue farmers.”

The Vanguard News reported on April 29, 2023 that “6,000 killed, 2m farmers displaced: Buhari.”

“Nigeria: at least 30 killed in herdsmen-farmer clash.” (africanews, May 19, 2023).

On October 8, 2023, Punch News reported, “Insecurity claims over 531 lives in four months.”

The Associated Press ‘AP News’, on December 26, 2023, informed, “Nigeria: at least 140 villagers killed by suspected herders in weekend.”

Just before the end of 2023, on December 27, Reuters reported, “Nigerian villagers missing two days after suspected nomadic herdsmen kill 140.” -just an entire community!

The list is endless. These are human beings like you and I, with their own hopes and expectations.

The number of farmers sent to their early graves in their farms in the country in recent times by herdsmen have surpassed the average number killed in any war situation.

It is sheer wickedness of this magnitude that has put Nigeria’s effort towards food production into the abyss it is in recent times, on the one hand, and government’s bad agricultural policy on the other.

Who will stop this man’s inhumanity to man in our country?

Nigerians will continue to groan under the york of food shortage as long as these barbaric wicked actions continue.

What’s the reason for this? Is it to precipitate starvation in the land or what?

Are these destructions and killings being sponsored by other ‘bad belle’ countries to frustrate Nigeria from being food sufficient?

Nostalgically, one could remember that before the clamour for food sufficiency these deliberate destructions were not rampant.

Both the state and federal governments should rise to the occasion and put a stop to these killings and destructions.

Since the advent of President Bola Tinubu’s administration on May 29, 2023, neither the wanton killings not destruction of live and property across the country have abated.

The question now is, what do these killers and destroyers want?

Can’t these absurdities, for once, be addressed?

Do we think that manna will fall from heaven for us after all these farmers and their farmlands are killed and destroyed?

Already the destructions have started having their tolls on the country’s economy, states and us individuals.

So, for how long will the Federal Government play the ostrich with these man-made challenges?

The people our leaders are leading are dying of hunger and starvation. There is no way our leaders should stand aloof, doing nothing! It would be preposterous and insensitive!

While other regional agitators are gunning for self-actualization here and there, what do the Fulanis want? What is their grouse?

The Fulani herdsmen, by implication, are themselves farmers, why do they want to destroy other farmers’ farmlands and means of livelihoods?

All the hardships and high costs of food items in the market are occasioned by this problem.

Again, in other climes not everyone is a farmer. Yet their food production does not suffer emergencies. When the time came for the past administrations in the country to disburse agriculture loans, they joked over the disbursement and gave their cronies and friends the money meant for the real farmers out there.

Today, the effect is widespread, creating hunger in society.

President Tinubu’s administration has not addressed the security challenges ravaging the country before he came on board. More than anything else insecurity has increased exponentially.

Arising from an emergency meeting held to address the protests occasioned by the high costs of food items in the country, a Special Presidential Committee on Emergency Food Intervention has been put in place to tackle the food crises in the country. Just as the

Federal Government has directed the immediate release of up to 42,000 metric tonnes of garri, millet, maize, and other commodities to shore up the food shortage.

In addition, the Government was reported to have met with Rice Millers Association of Nigeria and the millers have promised to supply about 60,000 metric tonnes of rice.

All these measures will offer only temporary reliefs and palliatives, no doubt, but what happens if the National Food Reserve gets exhausted?

It is on record that it was the shortage and high cost of bread that triggered the French Revolution in 1789.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was similarly caused by poor economy and corruption.

Nigeria with a population of over 210 million, Nigerian leaders should wake up from their sleep and address the constant causes of food shortage to avoid an upheaval.

It is in the news that students in tertiary institutions in the country are selling their little belongings to feed. (What belongings?). This is unprecedented in the history of Nigeria.

It is not out of place for the Federal Government to reduce the price of petroleum products as one of the measures to cushion the spiralling hardship.

Above all, Government should fight insecurity head-on and as much concentrate on aggressive agriculture.Those are what the country needs right now!

Given the conducive environment, government at all levels should embark on aggressive, incentive-induced campaigns to encourage farmers in the fast approaching farming season. More importantly, mechanised farming is better still.