Lucky Obukohwo Reporting
The Kaduna State Government says it has recovered more than 500,000 hectares of farmland previously inaccessible to farmers due to banditry and insecurity in parts of the state.
The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Ahmed Maiyaki, disclosed this at a Gala Night organised by the Kano Correspondents’ Chapel during its annual retreat in Kaduna.
Maiyaki said banditry had, in the past, reached a level where armed groups allegedly controlled some rural communities and agricultural activities, forcing farmers to abandon their fields.
He said the improved security situation was largely driven by the government’s community-based security approach and early warning mechanisms, which involve local stakeholders in detecting, reporting and preventing threats.
According to him, the measures have helped create safer conditions for farmers to return to their farmlands and resume agricultural activities.
“It was so bad that farmers could not go to their farms. But today, with community-led security and early warning systems, peace has returned, and our farmers are back on the land,” he said.
According to the commissioner, 75 potential threats were identified between 2023 and early 2026, with 70 contained before they escalated into communal or religious crises.
Maiyaki said the improved security situation had also enabled the state to increase its agricultural allocation from N1.4 billion in 2023 to more than N100 billion in 2026.
He added that the government had distributed fertiliser to farmers free of charge, a measure he said had contributed to a significant rise in maize production, from about three bags per hectare to as many as 22 bags.
Maiyaki also attributed the increased return of farmers to improvements in rural transportation, noting that roads constructed or rehabilitated across 12 local government areas had facilitated the movement of farm produce to markets.
He said the security intervention was part of a broader government strategy covering agriculture, education and healthcare.
According to him, the state was measuring the success of its programmes by their impact on residents rather than by the number of projects completed.
