Terrorists driving away farmers, food crisis imminent- Plateau Emir
A first class traditional ruler and Emir of Wase in Plateau State, Muhammad Haruna, on Thursday, said the state an by extension, the country risked a food crisis as insecurity had driven many farmers away from their farms into cities, where they remain idle.
He also raised the alarm that terrorists had taken over about 50 per cent of the landmass in the Wase Local Government Area and the people could not go into farms, and those who manage to do so sell out about 70 per cent of their produce before the next farming season.
The Emir stated these in Jos at a colloquium and fund raising organized by the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Plateau State Council, with the theme, “Tackling Food Crisis in Nigeria Through Robust Research for Sustainable Development”.
Haruna said, “I am a farmer and the majority of people in my domain are farmers. One of the things i want to mention is the issue of security.
“A lot of us leave the villages to the city to look for greener pastures because we cannot afford to go to our farms. This is not because we are lazy and want to be given fish. If the atmosphere is conducive for us to work on our farms, the number of people in the city will reduce because they will go back to the villages.
“We want to farm because of the vast land which God has blessed us with. There is basically nothing you cannot farm in Wase. Unfortunately 50 per cent of the landmass has been taken over by terrorists. Our people cannot go to farm. This week, a very ugly incident happened in one of the villages in Wase and for the first time, government at the federal, state and local levels took the right action by deploying armed soldiers and police to go and flush out all the terrorists.
