80% Of Farmers In The North Can’t Go To Farms, Nigeria Risks Famine – Lawmaker

Rep. Gudaji Kazaure, a member of the House of Representative from Jigawa State has accused the security services of not carrying out their duties well to ensure farmers return to the field in the Northwest of Nigeria.

Kazaure, a member of the ruling APC party, expressed the view on the floor of the National Assembly on Thursday and warned the country might face a food crisis.

“Mr Speaker people are talking about coronavirus, how many people have corona killed?” he asked, adding “We are talking about bandits, in a single day bandits have killed more than what corona has killed.”

“In Nigeria, people consider corona as something you put on your mask, block interstate travel, stay at home and shut down the country. We are not supposed to shut down the country, we are supposed to shut down banditry,” Kazaure said.

He queried why the government paid more attention to the COVID-19 pandemic and not banditry, which was claiming large numbers of lives in the region.

He demanded that relevant security agencies must do everything possible to end kidnappings and killings by armed groups in the Northwest.

The lawmaker said if care was not taken all efforts being put in place by the government would be reversed by the activities of the armed groups, which had been unleashing terror on communities.

According to Kazaure, the Department of State Service and other Intelligence arms of the security system are not doing their jobs well.

He said “the bandits are coming from the forest, the SSS is supposed to detect them and inform the military that these bandits are coming from the forests.

“Sometimes information will come to security, but the bandits will still come and spend hours, indiscriminately killing people.

“I wonder where our helicopters are and what the Airforce is doing.”

In the last two weeks, different terrorist groups in the Northwest have killed at least 130 with armed groups killing 77 between June 3 and June 4 in Zamfara State.

The killings have continued despite the fact that the military has intensified air and ground attacks on the criminals who are causing a serious humanitarian crisis in the region.

The attacks in the Northwest are further draining the resources of the military which have been engaged in a 10-year war with Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast.