From Salisu Zakari Maradun, Gusau.
Farm products worth millions of naira are currently left at various locations in Zamfara by their owners as they could not bring them home for fear of bandits, checks by our reporter had revealed.
According to the investigation, the inability of the farmers, particularly peasant ones, to evacuate their grains from Bush was the most contributing factor for the higher price of foodstuff in the State.
The investigation showed that out of 100 percent of those who squeezed to farm this year, not more than 60 percent were successful of bringing their own home, while the remaining percentage are still lingering in the bush taken over by the bandits and cattle rustlers.
The affected farmers who are mostly of lower class in the society are currently finding it difficult to live their lives affluently like every other Nigerian as what they solely depend on have almost been snatched away from them
Some of them who spoke to The Authority in the State, expressed their concern, and thus appealed to the government of the State to come to their aid by providing them with the security that will ensure their grains are brought home so that they get out of the present hardship they found themselves in.
Alhaji Lauwali Isah, and a farmer for over four decades, told our reporter angrily that of all the years he put in farming business he had never witnessed a trying year like this one, which a farmer, despite all the expenditure he made to farm, will be deprived of what he suffered to get.
He explained that he sank all he had to farm with aim of buying some materials for his two daughters who have been fixed to go to their matrimonies come March this year, but to his dismay, and from all indications, nothing will come to him.
Also speaking, Malan Garba Dauda, a resident of Sam’s Jiki, which is only a distance of 50 kilo metres away from the State capital, narrated that he was expecting over 120 sacks of exorted grains, but from all indications he will loose them to the hoodlums.
According to him, it is only when the government intervenes that he will be hopeful of getting them since he cannot go into the bush alone in the name of taking his belongings back home.
He stated that their prayer now is for the governor to help them, believing that the governor, knowing fully how sympathetic he is, can do it, because he tried it to many people who were cheated, and therefore he has the hope.
Virtually, series of special prayers are offered across the State seeking for the intervention of God and safe landing of the commodity to their owners in the State.
