Bauchi reiterates commitment to partnership for conducive environmental atmosphere for economic growth, development

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By Akanji Alowolodu, Bauchi

Bauchi State Government has reiterated its commitment to continue partnering with relevant agencies and international developmental partners in ensuring a conducive atmosphere for environmental development for economic growth and development.

The assertion was made by the State Commissioner of Housing and Environment, Rt Hon Danlami Ahmed Kawule, while speaking at the opening of a 2-day Stakeholders Workshop on Inclusive Land Management system held on Thursday.

He stressed that a comprehensive and effictive land management will ensure that minimal negativity is felt in the utilization of the available land for both agriculture and herding.

Represented by the Project Coordinator of the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL), Bauchi Project Office, Dr Ibrahim Kabir, the Commissioner said that the State Government is doing everything humanly and administratively possible to ensure that all users of land were protected in order to avoid conflicts.

He stressed that the workshop was coming at a good time when the stakes are high between the herders and the farmers who are harvesting their produce in order to give way for the herders and their cattle.

Danlami Ahmed Kawule urged the participants to make the workshop an interactive session so that at the end of the two days, a major workable solution will evolve.

Speaking earlier, Mr David Stanley, the Country Field Lead Soil Values Nigeria, explained that the programme is the Stakeholder Engagement on Inclusive Land Management Practices, which brought together stakeholders from Kano, Jigawa, and Bauchi states.

According to him, “These are the states where the SoilValue programme is implementing at the moment.The implementers, of this project which is funded by the Dutch government of Netherlands. We have three consortium partners that are implementing this project.”

He disclosed that the consortium include International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), SMV, which is a Dutch terminology referred to as the Netherlands Development Organization, and the Wageningen University Netherlands.”

He stressed that, “These are the consortium partners, but we work hand-in-hand with other partners that are under the World Bank-funded programmes. Here in Nigeria, we are working with ACReSAL and L-PRES at the moment.”

According to him, “What we really want to achieve, the aim of the SoilValues programme is to bring about farmers and headers together, and to see how we can mitigate conflicts around this watershed areas that we are implementing.”

“Also, the SoilValues programme wants to see how we can reclaim land that are degraded, and how we can affect the lives of smallholders farmers within those locations,” he concluded.

Also speaking, Dr. Ibrahim Kabir, the State Project Coordinator of Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Project, Bauchi State, stated that,”We are the platform actually, on which the programme is being implemented.

According to him,”We recently started partnership with Soil Values that received funding grant from the Dutch country. We started with stakeholder engagement where we have signed an MOU that ACReSAL is going to provide a platform for the Soil Values because they are not inventing the wheel.”

He also stated that,”We have communality in terms of our PDO where we are targeting to restore 1 million hectares of land across 19 Northern States and Soil Values is targeting to restore 800,000 hectares in Jigawa, Kano, and Bauchi States.”

Ibrahim Kabir added that, “So, based on that common objective, we sat down in the year 2024. We have signed MOU and we agreed that we are going to provide platform for them. All the project that they are going to execute in Bauchi, Jigawa, and Kano should be a gap that is being identified by ACReSAL Project in these three states. And this is how we are going.”

According to him,”This time around, we agreed that we need to have a document. We need to have an action plan that is called Integrated Landscape Management System. Where most of our activities that we are doing, be it in ACReSAL, be it in L-PRESS, Sister World Bank Project, and also in the Soil Values will be tracking to see to what extent are we operating together.”

He added that, “We will see the level of inclusiveness. We will see the level at which we are moving. Whether the agri-sector, the water resource sector, the environmental sector, and of course othe issues as well.”

The Bauchi State ACReSAL PC stressed that, “We need to know how far have we gone. What are we executing together? So the essence of this engagement is for us to come up with this document which we believe within the two days of this workshop we can be able to at least gather the level of information that we can use in order to come up with the ILMS for Bautist State Jigawa and of course Kano State.

Speaking on the mitigation of the frequent clashes between farmers and herders in the implementation of such beautiful programmes as experienced in the past, he said that, “I think beyond that, we have already conducted a needs assessment, where we looked at the major causes of this herders/farmers clashes in terms of the issue of movement in order to search for water, of course during the dry season, trying to get food for the herds.”

According to him,”In fact, this is why we are now working together across the three states with the Soil Values and of course the L-PRES.”

Some of the participants at the workshop commended the organisers saying that it came at the right time when the issue of clashes between herders and farmers are becoming inevitable.

Mal Mohammed Abdulkadir from Jigawa State wants the organizers to broker truce between the two people who are supposed to be friends but have turned enemies due to reasons of survival.

Also, Amina Ahmadu assured that whatever she learnt from the workshop will be implemented when she gets back to her community in order to have a lasting peaceful relationship between the two people.

Participants who are herders, farmers and officials of the relevant agencies were drawn from Bauchi, Jigawa and Kano states.