DANGER LOOMS! KADUNA STATE OUTLOOK.

Lord Frederick Lugard, the Governor-General (1914-1919) of Nigeria, moved the Northern Region's capital from Zungeru to Kaduna. In 1967, Kaduna became the North Central State's capital, created from the Northern Region. By 1976, General Murtala Mohammed gave the state its name. In 1987, the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida created the state of Katsina from Kaduna. Interestingly, the Nok tribe, one of Africa's earliest civilisations, is located within the area that makes up Kaduna. The state slogan is "The Centre of Learning" because it is home to several prestigious institutions. The Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Nigerian College of Aviation, Barewa College and Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, to name a few.

Kaduna state produces cotton and peanuts (groundnuts) for export. Other cash crops include shea nuts, ginger, and peppers; vegetables grown in the riverine floodplains, brown sugar processed locally from sugarcane; onions; and soybeans. Tobacco is a major cash crop around Zaria (where cigarettes are made), and sorghum is?utilized?by a brewery in Kaduna town. Sorghum and millet are staple foods. Cattle, chickens,?guinea fowl, and sheep are raised, and hides and skins are tanned for export. Five major crops cultivated in the State are?Maize, Rice, Guinea Corn, Soya beans and Beans. Seed is the major cropping material used during crop production.

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Between 10,000 and 20,000 people are estimated to have died in incidents across Kaduna State since 1980, a pattern of violence that peaked in 1992 and again from 2000 to 2002. In 2011, when tensions boiled over across 10 northern states triggered by protests against the presidential election results, more than 500 people were killed in southern Kaduna alone. (https://www.chathamhouse.org/2017/02/violence-southern-kaduna-threatens-undermine-nigerias-democratic-stability).

This put the state in a very bad shape when it comes to food production as thousands have been displaced from farming activities.

Food production is threatened

Speaking on the impact of banditry and terrorism in the area in the last six years, the SOKAPU President, Hon. Jonathan Asake said 200, 000 of his people were displaced and over 148 communities were destroyed by the bandits and terrorists.

According to him, “we are calling on Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) Foreign Missions, European Union, United Nations, among others, to beam their searchlight on the atrocities, crimes against humanities, ethnic cleansing being perpetrated against the people of Southern Kaduna.”

In other communities in Kajuru and Chikun LGAs, the occupying terrorists cohabit with the locals where the locals are treated like captives. They are terrorised at will, making it difficult or impossible for them to till or harvest their farms. As a result,?most early maturing crops are left to rot on the farm. According to a prominent indigene of the region, “It may not be an exaggeration to say that about 3,000 farming communities have been affected with hundreds of thousands of their members displaced.”

Ayuba Ibrahim (Garanti), a Kafanchan ginger farmer, estimates that agricultural outputs have dipped by about 35 per cent in three years. “Over three years ago, when the attacks and reprisals were less, I used to harvest about 300 bags of ginger,” the former Publicity Secretary of an association of ginger farmers lamented, adding that he could only harvest about 150 bags in 2019 because he was too afraid to go to his farm.

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3000 farming communities affected? Then to say Danger looms is not out of place and the state actors need to start doing something before it’s late.

Humangle, vanguard news