Insecurity: Zamfara farmers to meet with bandits today

Farmers in Zamfara State will hold a meeting with leaders of bandits in the state to today (Saturday).

The meeting will centre around negotiation of their (farmers) protection and allow them access to their farmland.

The farmers, who spoke under the auspices of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria, Zamfara State chapter, made this known in an interview with PUNCH.

Recall that farmers and residents of some communities in the northern part of the country had said they had been paying levies and taxies to suspected bandits in order to avoid being attacked by the hoodlums.

According to AFAN, their meeting with the bandits was expected to hold on Saturday (today).

AFAN Public Relations Officer, Abdulhafiz Alkali, on Thursday, bemoaned the Federal Government indifference to their plight.

He noted that the government seemed to have abandoned them to their fate and jettisoned any idea of providing security for farmers.

He said, “What I know about protection with the farmers is just the negotiation between the bandits and the farmers. I am living in Zamfara State now. I know that there will be a meeting by this coming Saturday between the farmers and the bandits.

“We lost a lot of things in Zamfara State. We sent letters to the Federal Government to secure us five years ago after complaining that the bandits were disturbing us.

“We needed the intervention of the Federal Government but it never came. What we lost in the past seven to six years is between N30bn to N50bn on commodities only.

“Many people from different countries and states used to come to the Dansadua axis to buy commodities to the tune of over N50b in a year, but now, in a year, we get less than N2bn to N3bn.

“In Zamfara State, the commodities business was worth over N200bn to N300bn, but these bandits interrupted the business. We wrote letters, we complained, but up till now, no response from the Federal Government.”

Alkali further stated that arrangements were in top gear by the association to meet with the Ministry of Agriculture to get clarity on the matter.

“We need between 3,000 and 5,000 (parcels of) arable land, most especially in the North and South-South. For now, there has been no communication between us and the ministry. No member of the All Farmers Association knows about these projects.”