A reign of terror by emerging gangs in the Northwest is massively crippling farming in the geo-political zone, former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa has said.
A sect which the Nigerian Army identifies as Hakika is also said to be holding sway around Ngwurore in Yola South Local government Area of Adamawa State and Toto Local Government Area of Nassarawa State, indoctrinating its members with alleged twisted interpretations of Islam.
Musa said the situation in the Northwest is so bad now that owners and managers of large scale farms have abandoned their investments while farm hands fear being kidnapped for ransom by bandits.
“At the moment, here in Kaduna, once you go to your farm few kilometres outside the city, anyone can get kidnapped,” the former governor said.
“The farms cannot do well because the owners of the farms are too afraid to go to the farms for fear of being kidnapped.
“The risk is that you do not have to be a rich man to get abducted; even if you are one of the poor farmers who only manage to produce few bags of maize per year, you can be abducted for a ransom of N50,000 or much more.
“In fact, we have situations around Kaduna whereby almajiri boys who go to the farm to do labourer work are being kidnapped for a ransom of N3000 per almajiri.
“That is what is happening here now; so, the situation is terrible,” he said.
Recalling his personal experience with bandits who rustled 100 of his cattle, the former governor lamented that law enforcement agents appear incapable of tackling the worsening criminal activities.
“These things (kidnapping killings, banditry) do not happen only around Birni-Gwari or Zamfara. They now happen everywhere, almost throughout northern Nigeria! Almost all the big farmers are affected.
“For instance, this cattle rustling problem, we are experiencing it in our area too; I lost about one hundred cattle. My farm is more or less in a military zone as it is only a road that separates my farm from the Command and Staff College and military barracks in Jaji, along the road from Kaduna to Zaria.
“But still, the bandits had the confidence to come and take away my cattle. I was able to identify the bandits, the police arrested them and out of the 100 cattle stolen, four were returned to me.
“However, one of the identified suspects is now free, in spite of the evidence against him and the fact that I collected four of my cattle from him.
“As a matter of fact, it was the police that arrested the culprit and gave me the four cattle and yet nothing significant has happened on the matter.”
Alhaji Balarabe Musa said it is naïve for people to assume that the prevailing security threats across the country cannot lead to some historically serious situation.
“There is now complete breakdown of law and order in this country; the only saviour is that somehow, we can all still get food to eat, no matter what.
“What happens when food becomes unavailable and who can correct the situation? Has the government in power proven capable of dealing with the matter? Can the situation continue like this forever? If it continues, what will it lead to?
“It will lead to either some very decisive constitutional measures or anarchy. Anarchy itself leads to something else, including maybe, a proletarian revolution which is not a myth – it has happened elsewhere to solve some problems.
Efforts to get the Force Public Relations Officer, Moshood Jimoh to respond to our questions on the Hakida sect were unsuccessful at press time, as he did not respond to text messages sent to him.