By Fatima Saka
The field officer of National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW), Jigawa, Umar Garba, has expressed worry over the vandalism and theft of their facilities by communities in Jigawa state.
Garba made the expression during an assessment of field investment by the agency in Birniwa, Makoda and Kirkasama, Local Government Areas on Monday.
Nigeria is one of the pioneer communities of the Great Green Wall initiative facing challenges of land degradation, desertification, climate change among others and has 11 frontline states affected.
Garba further said that the vandalism was negatively affecting the effort of the NAGGW, thereby, increasing more challenges and delay in the delivery of service.
According to him, some of the people from the community vandalise our facilities and this is causing a lot of challenges to us.
“Sometimes their animals will destroy our facilities, the trees we planted, when they are about coming up, the animals will destroy the wire we use to protect the areas and damage our property.
“This situation is actually affecting our effort, we have forest guards who are supposed to guard the environment, but they can’t sleep in the forest.
“I believed the unknown people and even the owners of those animals that destroy our facilities target them when our guards are not around the area.
“My advice to the communities is to work with the agency, because the property belongs to them, they should support the officials to fight against this negative act, so that they can as well enjoy their property,” he said.
Garba also said that the community’s failure to accept government’s project was another challenge facing the agency because the people felt that the government wanted to claim the land from them.
While speaking, he said because they believe that the land belongs to them, some of them will not want to release their land for any project.
“But some of them welcome our plan and embrace our project. Those ones release their lands and even join us to do the work.
“We keep telling the communities how the projects will help them and we will continue doing our sensitisation to ensure we enlighten them.” He said.
Garba expressed that the agency established about 27 kilometers of shelter belts in 2017, 65 kilometers in 2020 and about 60 kilometers were established in 2021.
He said that the agency also executed 50 kilometers of orchard in 2020, adding that for woodlots, indigenous tree species and acacia Senegal has about 50 hectares each.
The officer said that the agency constructed a tube well, powered by a solar energy panel, adding that the well was functioning well.
“The only challenge we are having about the tube well is that when sun is not bright, it will affect the pumping of the water but as soon as the weather is bright, it works very well,” he said.
