One of the major eye-catching features along the highways leading into Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city, is the number of large expanses of farmlands which the well-to-do in society acquire, fence and lock up.
The farms are, however left with little or no farming activity going on, on them.
Along Abuja-Keffi expressway in Nasarawa State, almost all the farmlands are fenced and under lock and key, with only some having some skeletal farming activities carried out in them by smallholder farmers (most of who apparently are on subsistent level). Many of the expansive farms, it was observed, have not had a tractor work on them for ages.
Some of the farms, especially those along the Abuja-Keffi-Jos road, are said to belong to serving and retired top military officers, top government functionaries and politicians.
Our correspondents who also travelled along the Abuja-Kaduna and Lokoja-Abuja highways saw many fenced and locked up farmlands on both sides of the road.
Most of the lands close to Garam community in Niger State, it was learnt were acquired for ‘commercial’ farming purposes.
The choice of the community may be partly because of its proximity to the Federal Capital Territory.
The lands were acquired and fenced by people who have huge financial muscle; but many of the farms have not witnessed any farming activity in the last 10 years.
In many cases, the communities where these lands are bought do not know the buyers because, according to a farmer, Iliyasu Ibrahim, who has a farm n ear one of the locked-up farms along Kaduna road, said the land was acquired through the village head.
But for some of the farmers, their grouse is that these large, hardly used farms rob them of the opportunity to have farms closer to their communities.
Read Original Report Here By Daily Trust