Over 1,356 farmers in northern Nigeria have lost their lives to banditry attacks between 2020 and 2024, an SMB Intelligence report has revealed.
Within the same period, N139 million was paid as farm levies (including planting and harvesting) to bandits who demanded at least N224 million across the North between 2020 and 2023.
The SBM Intelligence, an Africa-focused market and security intelligence consultancy, corroborates data from Global Human Rights Nigeria that disclosed that 24,816 people have been killed and 15,597 kidnapped in Africa’s most populous nation in the last five years.
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“In the same period leading up to June 2024, at least 1,356 farmers were killed across the country, with most of the killings occurring in the North,” the report said.
“These illegal tolls have made it difficult for farmers to access their farms and added to the mounting food insecurity exacerbated by factors such as an unstable currency,” it added.
This report comes following the ongoing hunger protest across states that is spiking food prices in many markets and leading to the destruction of lives and properties.
Nigeria with numerous arable hectares of land, still struggles to meet its food demand due to a rapidly declining farming population in majorly northern states – Nigeria’s main food-growing region.
With food inflation at 40.87 percent in June, the highest since 2014, farming has become a survival of the courageous.
In April, another report by the security intelligence consultancy pinned farmers’ death toll in Benue State at 690 with about 130 casualties between January 2023 and February 2024.
This has led to a drastic decline in the farming population as farmers now live in constant fear for their lives.
“A lot of farmers do not cultivate in places where they usually grow crops because of the high rate of insecurity,” said Edobong Akpabio, a former head of agribusiness at Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in an earlier interview with BusinessDay.
The SBM Intelligence report entitled, ‘An August Nightmare: Accessing the Early Days of the #EndBadGovernance Protests in Nigeria’ hinted that farmers in the north experienced 10 times more kidnapping and death than farmers in the south.
“The North has suffered more kidnappings between July 2023 and June 2024, with more than ten times as many kidnap victims as the South,” the SMB noted.
The report analyses how farmers in Nigeria are belaboured by different issues that affect food production, putting Nigeria’s current food production at less than the needed demand.
“As the area that supplies the country with its agricultural needs, its farmers have been subjected to multiple taxation by bandit warlords operating in rural areas.”
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In some parts of the country, farmers employ the services of security personnel as escorts to their farms. One farmer told BusinessDay that he spent over N200,000 a month in salaries for security guards.
The report further revealed bad roads as a major driver of food insecurity, while insecurity follows after.
“We had earlier identified security as the second biggest challenge faced by farmers after the poor state of Nigeria’s roads.
The challenge that insecurity poses has primarily manifested at dining tables and driven people to the streets, which, in a way, has complicated Nigeria’s already fragile security situation,” it noted.
Nigerians took to the streets in protest against hunger, bad governance and the removal of fuel subsidies, on August 1 2024.
