Cash crops, economic trees, and leased farmland valued at two million Naira have been destroyed at rural Amagwu community, Umuavulu Abor in Udi local government area of Enugu State, Nigeria by restive youths allegedly hired by anonymous community leaders.
Narrating the incident, the emotionally distraught farmer, Mrs. Ifeaoma Igwe explained how she lost crops such as corn, cassava, pepper, and guinea pea cultivated in the vast farmland, the size of 30 plots.
“…women cultivate the land owned by the community… and a fellow woman encouraged me to avail myself of the community farmland for agricultural purposes and I engaged laborers from Kogi State who ploughed thousands of ridges manually and professionally,” Mrs. Igwe told our correspondent at the scene of the destruction.
According to Igwe’s account, the destruction bore a resemblance to the nefarious activities of the itinerant Fulani herdsmen who frequently attack farmers in their farmlands across the southeast region of Nigeria.
After inspecting the scale of destruction at the farm, Mrs. Igwe, a self-described “passionate farmer” complained the community leadership, specifically the President-General who acknowledged the action of the youths and merely told the victim that “I didn’t know you were the one who cultivated on the disputed land.”
Asked if she knew the dispute surrounding the vandalized farmland, Mrs. Igwe said she was unaware of any land dispute, saying she wouldn’t have leased the land, more so, as she got offers from a nearby community where her husband held sway. “Amagwu is a village at Umuavulu Abor Community claiming they own the land while Ubiokpo village of Abor community says it theirs and when they called Amagwu village people to swear an oath if they claim they own the land but till now they refused to take the oath.”
Mrs. Igwe explained that after reporting the incident to the community’s leadership, the President-General of the community promised to investigate the matter.
Igwe, who is also a civil servant with the Enugu State Government started farming activity at Enugu prior to Covid-19 public health crisis. However, she drew extra inspiration to invest in farming during the pandemic with its associated lockdown and expanded her farming operations beginning with 15 plots of cassava farm at her native Abor community, located 10 miles north of Enugu, capital city of Enugu State of Nigeria.
“Instead of just staying idle during global public health crisis”, Igwe stated, “I decided to utilize my time more productively at the farm and was so successful that I provided garri and vegetable to some of my colleagues in the office who complained of hunger in their homes.”
The “passionate farmer” later took his passion from subsistence farming to commercial farming, a remarkable feat that many Nigerians should emulate as a strategy to stem the tide of hunger and hopelessness in the once food basket of the West African region.
