Banditry: Why I Abandon My 10,000 Hectares Birnin Gwari Farm — Ex-Governor Bafarawa Speaks

Attahiru Bafarawa, the ex-governor of Sokoto State, has revealed that he deserted his 10,000-hectare farm in Birnin Gwari due to concerns over banditry and kidnapping.

Bafarawa, while speaking to members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Correspondents’ Chapel in Sokoto, who paid him a courtesy visit at his residence, 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 ransome, the reverse was now the case.

He added that for the past 10 years, he could not assess the farmland for fear of bandits.

He 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,” said Bafarawa.