The paradoxes seem endless. Just a few days after the agriculture and rural development minister, Mohammed Abubakar, claimed that terrorist attacks have not significantly affected agricultural production in a country with a double digit inflation and increasing malnutrition, there are reports that terrorist warlords have gone into big time farming in parts of Kaduna State.
These saddening reports came a few weeks after the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, told President Muhammadu Buhari in a memo that terrorists are now creating a parallel government in the state. The governor, citing intelligence reports, claimed they are occupying some communities and consolidating their hold on them.
The scarier part of the memo to the President is that detailing that the terrorists seem to have promulgated a law to ban political activities in the areas under their control, including the forthcoming 2023 elections. The group of terrorists issuing the threats are said to be Islamic extremists who abhor democracy and other secular systems of government. They even prevented the 2021 census from holding in most of the 11 wards of Birnin Gwari.
So, the report that the terrorists have now occupied the most arable lands in Birnin Gwari area of Kaduna and gone into big-time farming cannot come to the authorities as a surprise. The heartbreaking aspect is the report that they are using locals as free labourers and with no protection from either the state or Federal Government.
We condemn totally the fate that has befallen the helpless people in those communities that the terrorists have captured. Under international labour laws, each worker is supposed to be protected and paid for his labour. The communities eke out their livelihoods from farming; so, the idea that terror groups have dispossessed them of their lands is bad enough. To now enslave them on the same lands can only be compared to the activities of the Western and Middle Eastern slave merchants of the pre-colonial era. To think that slavery has for centuries been abolished and the Birnin Gwari people are reliving the awful experiences all over again is just sad and unpardonable.
While we bemoan the occupation of farmlands in parts of Kaduna State, it is equally heartbreaking that Zamfara State farmers are scheduled to start negotiations with terrorists in their state. It is really a disappointing time for both the state and federal governments that they have been unable to provide the basic fundamental of government, that of securing lives and property. The Zamfara State case is equally pathetic because, for so long, the people have been at the mercy of the terrorists who have moved from kidnapping to taxing the farmers, and are now occupying their farmlands.
We are disappointed that with all these heartbreaking tragedies, the Federal Government seems helpless, even with the recent BBC documentary on the terrorists. Obviously, the agriculture and rural development minister seems very ignorant of the sector he swore an oath to protect. Saying that terrorist activities have had no significant impact on agricultural production is not only fallacious but very disappointing for one paid with tax-payers money.
In climes that hold public officers to account, the minister ought to have been sacked or the outrage his comments caused across a country where there is diminishing agricultural productivity due to terrorist activities would have forced him to resign immediately.
Even though Kaduna and Zamfara states were in the news recently, most agricultural states like Benue, Plateau, Edo, Ondo, etc. are reeling under the effects of terrorism. There are serious fears that there would be worsening food insecurity in the coming years for a fast growing population.
The governments and public officers must sit up and take serious steps to protect Nigerians from terrorists. Mortgaging the people’s freedom to the terrorists is not what democracy is all about.