A long-awaited rainfall should have been received with joy by Khalid Umar and other farmers in the Pandogari district of Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State. In these rural communities, a downpour prompts farmers to rush to their fields to spray pesticides and plant seeds. Instead, a recent one became a trap. Within hours of the rain stopping, armed bandits encircled the farmlands on 15 June, forcing Mr Umar to abandon his motorcycle and run on foot for his life.
Some villagers were not as fortunate. That afternoon, the assailants killed Dauda Galadima, a resident of the nearby Ruba village. They also abducted five farmers on their fields, including Nasiru Yakubu and his son, Bilyaminu. After their family paid a five-million-naira ransom, the bandits released the father but kept the son for more money.
|
|
A similar attack had occurred a day earlier. Mr Umar told PREMIUM TIMES that bandits raided a farm plantation on 14 June, killing two farmers and kidnapping four women and a man identified as Haruna Dattijo. Upon hearing the news of his abduction, Mr Dattijo’s mother reportedly slumped and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
For peasant farmers, avoiding the fields is not an option. In these rural communities, farming is the sole means of survival. Left to fend for themselves, residents are now devising localised security measures to protect their communities and stave off starvation.
|
|
|
|---|
“We are devising local security initiatives just to continue farming,” Mr Umar explained. “We now assign individuals to climb the tallest trees to act as sentries. Their job is to monitor the horizon and alert those working on the ground the moment they spot any suspicious movement toward the fields.”
Yet, even these makeshift early-warning systems are not enough, Mr Umar said. In several parts of the community, agricultural activity has stopped because of the bandits. He estimated that roughly half of the region’s farms have been abandoned.
The rising toll
Since the onset of this year’s rainy season, the violence has escalated drastically. At least nine people have been killed and approximately 20 others abducted in the Pandogari district.
Mr Umar stated that the casualties span all sectors of rural life. Among those killed was Abubakar Idris, a staff nurse at the Kagara General Hospital—the council headquarters—who was murdered on his farm. Recently, he added, the community evacuated the remains of two women murdered on their family farms.
As the rainy season peaks, the window for planting is rapidly closing. Mr Umar warned that without a decisive shift in security strategy to protect the agricultural periphery, these communities face not only the immediate threat of violence but a catastrophic food crisis.
The limit of military operations
While a military base is stationed in Pandogari town, locals argue that its current operational strategy leaves the surrounding agricultural areas highly vulnerable.
A resident, Garba Haruna, noted that the soldiers are static, adopting a defensive posture instead of launching offensive operations into the bush.
“The military base is strategically positioned on the bandits’ primary transit route, effectively blocking them from invading Pandogari town itself. However, recognising this bottleneck, the bandits have simply altered their path by bypassing the military checkpoint,” Mr Haruna said. “The armed groups are now filtering directly into the isolated farmlands—areas where the military cannot provide security cover—and picking off vulnerable farmers one by one.”
Birnin Gwari – Kaduna State
In June, tragedy struck the Kuyello District of the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area in Kaduna State when armed bandits invaded the Kujijiro farmlands, killing at least nine farmers. According to local sources, the victims were working on their fields when the heavily armed attackers suddenly arrived and opened fire.
Ishaq Kasai, a security expert and community leader, told PREMIUM TIMES that farmers in the Birnin Gwari axis are routinely killed or abducted while working their land.
The attacks dealt a blow to the fragile peace in the Birnin Gwari Emirate, which had been brokered by the government between armed bandits and crop farmers. The region, regarded as one of Kaduna State’s primary agricultural hubs, is now facing a resurgence of violent crime.
In a separate incident on 15 June, armed bandits killed another farmer in Kasuwar Magani, a village in the Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The victim, Baba Bala—popularly known within the community as Sarkin Daji—was reportedly killed on his farm.
On 3 July, in the Birnin-Gwari Emirate, armed bandits attacked local communities, killing at least nine farmers and abducting an unspecified number of villagers.
On that day, the attacks began around 3 p.m. Residents said the bloodshed was triggered by a failed robbery attempt in which two armed bandits had attempted to snatch a farmer’s motorcycle.
A resident, Ibrahim Garba, said the incident ended in the death of one of the bandits.
“The other bandit fled and returned with a heavily armed gang that unleashed a ruthless assault on farmers working in the vicinity, killing nine of them”, Mr Garba narrated.
Local authorities confirmed the names of some of the deceased as Habibu Danko, Zaharaddin Gumu, and Maibaka Mayana. Others are Umar Maibaka, Yusufu Dankatakaki, and Shaf’iu Kagadama.
Mr Garba said this latest massacre followed another attack on 2 July, when armed bandits killed a man identified as Ya’u Gayam on the Birnin-Gwari–Kaduna Road and stole his motorcycle.
“The situation is becoming unbearable. Our people cannot even go to their farms without facing the threat of attack,” the distraught resident, Mr Garba, lamented.
The security commissioner in Kaduna State, Sule Shuaibu, and that of Niger State, Maurice Magaji, did not respond to phone calls or text messages from PREMIUM TIMES in the course of this story.
The agricultural sector and challenges
In 2026, Nigeria’s agricultural sector has an optimistic growth trajectory. Data from Veriv Africa’s Macroeconomic Outlook 2026 reveals a thriving non-oil sector, with agricultural commodities dominating the nation’s export growth. The report projects stable growth in agriculture throughout 2026. Currently employing approximately 45 per cent of the national workforce, the industry remains a vital engine for economic expansion, even as structural bottlenecks frequently cap its full potential.
Nigeria’s agricultural sector demonstrated progressive improvement throughout 2025, laying a strong foundation for the current year. Agriculture contributed over ₦17.8 trillion to the nation’s GDP in the third quarter of 2025 alone. By the end of Q3 2025, the sector’s total output reached ₦30.5 trillion, with crop production accounting for 66 per cent of that value.
According to the 2025 Agricultural Performance Survey (APS) Report by the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), the sector recorded sustained growth in key staples—including maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cowpea, yam, and cassava—compared to 2024. This surge in productivity was driven by improved extension delivery and technology integration, which ultimately contributed to a nationwide reduction in food prices. Furthermore, farmers demonstrated remarkable resilience by expanding their acreage and adopting modernised farming practices.
This domestic strength translated into a formidable presence in the global market, heavily supported by liberalised trade channels through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). In the first half of 2025, Nigeria’s non-oil export earnings surged to $6.11 billion, spurred by rising global demand. Total export volume reached 8.02 million metric tonnes. Cocoa and its derivatives led the charge, accounting for $1.99 billion of the total export value.
These metrics underscore a banner year for the agro-sector, creating strong momentum that is projected to carry into 2026.
READ ALSO: Bandits kill nine farmers, abduct many in Kaduna attacks
However, despite these statistical triumphs, long-standing systemic vulnerabilities continue to stifle productivity and threaten to undermine 2026 growth projections. The primary threat to the sector’s expansion is a persistent climate of insecurity. The North-west and North-central regions remain particularly volatile, creating high-risk farming environments. Security breaches have forced many smallholders, such as those in Pandogari district, to abandon their land, resulting in a significant loss of cultivated acreage and potential crop output.
Despite reports of successes in military operations in those areas, farmers struggle to cultivate more land as the country fails to provide tangible, localised security measures for rural agrarian communities. While Nigeria’s agricultural sector possesses immense momentum and global market appeal, its long-term expansion will remain strictly capped until the government successfully secures its primary production zones and addresses core infrastructural deficits.
Local authorities and community leaders warn that if the military fails to flush out the bandits and reclaim the rural spaces decisively, the total collapse of this farming cycle will spike food prices and trigger widespread hunger.
