Insecurity: I’ve abandoned my 10,000 hectares farm in Birnin Gwari – Ex-Sokoto governor

Former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, has revealed that he abandoned his 10,000-hectare farmland in Birnin Gwari due to the spate of banditry and kidnapping.

Bafarawa made this known while speaking to members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Correspondents’ Chapel who paid him a courtesy visit at his residence in Sokoto.

He said the farm land along Birnin Gwari/Kaduna road, before now, had been a beehive of farming activities, where various crops were cultivated since 1979, but with the emergence of banditry and kidnapping for ransom, the reverse was now the case.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chieftain, stated that for the past 10 years, he could not access the farmland for fear of bandits.

Bafarawa said; “I produce tones of grains beyond sales in the Nigerian markets, which necessitated my establishing the Bafarawa flour mill in Sokoto, the first of it’s kind in the North West.

“The emergence of banditry has since derailed the morals of large-scale farmers in Birnin Gwari/ Kaduna axis, who after harvest flood markets to force down the prices of foodstuffs and other cash crops.

“Imagine in my local government area, we have to negotiate with bandits to allow us farm as if there is no constituted authority. They decide where we should farm at every given season, which is very sad and unfortunate.

“If care is not taken, this year, there will be famine and hunger in the North West as many farmers, who were supposed to farm and their families were driven from their villages.

“FG should wake up from its slumber and do whatever it takes to allow displaced peasant farmers return to their farmlands before the commencement of rainy season or else achieving food security in many states of the north will only be a mockery”.