Rice farming is booming in southern Plateau, and attracting kidnappers

Rice farmers say a boom in rice farming business is causing them most victims of kidnapping especially in southern zone of Plateau State where farmers enjoy cultivation of rice.

The worried farmers said since local rice is now a goldmine among the major staples being produced by Nigerian farmers in recent time, kidnappers believe that there is money in the business thereby making the abductors to hunt them on their farms.

They said the outburst of the development in the zone is keeping them stay away from their farms.

Albert Nkwap, the chairman of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RFAN), in Shendam, one of the LGA in the  southern zone said the activity of kidnappers in the area is posing threat generally on farming activities in the area, urging the government to urgently intervene to rescue farming activities in the area.

The Plateau State Governor, Simon Bako Lalong, in his response to the spate of abductions in the state, on Wednesday last week, in Mangu Halle of Mangu LGA vowed to push over whoever is found guilty of the act, saying “If I catch anybody keeping someone for ransom, I will destroy that house completely because kidnapping is not a business.”

In his reaction to the development, the State Commissioner of Police, Isaac Akinmoyede, on Thursday at his office, said the command is doing everything possible to arrest perpetrators of the act, explaining there was no society without crime.

One of the victim, Ibrahim Kano, who was kidnapped on December 13, 2019, together with his brother, Haruna Umar on their farms located in Isimi  village bordering Taraba communities, disclosed that they were released on December 19 after paying N2.5m ransom.

He narrated how “10 gunmen stormed our farm and took us to a bush where negotiation for ransom took place. We pleaded for 500,000 but insisted the ransom is N2.5m or else be killed. In the end, N2.5m was paid before we were released.

Kano further called on government to tackle the spate of the menace, saying lots of farmers have not yet finished harvesting their rice.