Sen Shehu Sani to Northern Elites: ‘Agricultural Summits Are a Waste of Time Without Tackling Insecurity First’

By Emmanuel Kwada

Former Senator Shehu Sani has issued a scathing rebuke to Northern Nigeria’s political elite, calling their focus on agricultural summits futile while insecurity continues to ravage rural communities.

In a post on X on May 22, 2025, Sani declared, “Going to the farm is not the problem but coming back from the farm. Agricultural summits in the North are just talking shops until the full restoration of law and order in the rural communities.”

His remarks underscore the dire security challenges crippling agricultural productivity in the region and highlight a broader failure of leadership to prioritize actionable solutions.

Going to the farm is not the problem but coming back from the farm

Sani’s statement comes amid escalating violence in Northern Nigeria, where banditry, terrorism, and kidnapping have made farming a life-threatening endeavor.

On the same day, Sani referenced recent atrocities, noting that “last week bandits killed 30 farmers in Zamfara and this week terrorists slaughtered 50 farmers in Plateau State,” pointing to the absence of 12 governors at the Northern Governors Forum meeting in April as evidence of a lack of commitment to addressing the crisis.

These incidents are part of a broader pattern: in 2024 alone, over 10,000 schools in the North were forced to close due to insecurity, amplifying the region’s educational and economic crises.

No livestock or agric transformation plan in the North will succeed without first addressing the problems of pervasive insecurity

The former Kaduna Central Senator, known for his outspoken criticism of governance failures, has long linked the North’s insecurity to systemic issues, including poor education, poverty, and leadership deficits.

Speaking at the Kaduna Girl Child Conference in November 2024, Sani argued, “Illiteracy breeds poverty, and poverty breeds insecurity. If we had educated the people responsible for insecurity three decades ago, they wouldn’t have turned to crime.”

Agricultural summits in the North are just talking shops until the full restoration of law and order in the rural communities

He emphasized that the North’s vast resources—gold, lithium, uranium, and fertile land—remain untapped due to ineffective leadership, leaving rural communities vulnerable to violence and economic stagnation.

Sani’s critique targets the Northern elite’s recurring emphasis on agricultural summits as a solution to food insecurity, which he deems ineffective without first ensuring safety. In a 2019 post on X, he warned, “No livestock or agric transformation plan in the North will succeed without first addressing the problems of pervasive insecurity,” highlighting the persistent danger farmers face from bandits and insurgents.

Recent data supports his stance: Nigeria’s food inflation reached 40.66% in 2024, driven partly by insecurity disrupting farming activities, with farmers in states like Niger and Kaduna forced to pay levies to bandits to access their farms.