Rotimi Williams was seen as one of Nigeria’s most successful rice farmers seven years ago, but now the 42-year-old’s land stands idle.
The problem: insecurity, which has ground his farms to a halt.
In 2012, Mr Williams left his career as a banker and ventured into agriculture. He was profiled in international media and described as the second-largest producer of rice in Nigeria, with thriving farms across the north.
But the threat to his life and the lives of his workers grew too much.
“There was a time my car was shot at on my way back from the farm,” he said. “There were also kidnap attempts.”
In the past three years, a sharp rise in insecurity has led to gangs kidnap hundreds of people for ransom in Nigeria, and staff of prosperous agricultural enterprises have been particularly targeted, forcing many farms to abandon or reduce operations.
More than 350 farmers were kidnapped or killed in the 12 months up to June 2022 alone, according to a Nigerian security tracking website.
The majority of attacks took place in the northern region where there is swathes of uncultivated land and some of the country’s largest farms.
In January 2022, five people were killed in an exchange of gunfire between security agents and armed gunmen on motorbikes, gang members known locally as “bandits”, who attacked the premises of GB Foods, a tomato-processing plant in the north-western state of Kebbi.
When the multi-million-dollar factory, partly funded by the central bank, had launched to great fanfare in 2020, it was described in the media as Nigeria’s second-largest food processing plant and included the country’s largest tomato farm.
Bandits then tried to kidnap some of the staff. They failed, but the plant has been out of operation since.
“There’s nowhere else in the world where people require armed security to go to the farm,” said Mezuo Nwuneli, the managing partner of Sahel Capital.
His agriculture investment firm is in its ninth year of a 10-year contract to invest $66m (£54m) in the farming sector on behalf of the government and its partners, including the UK government and some Dutch investors.
On one of Sahel Capital’s farms, a security officer was killed during a kidnapping attempt.
“They used to be comfortable working till 10pm but because of the attack, they don’t feel safe to work late. In other parts of the world, you can run a farm 24/7.”
Source: BBC
