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Nigeria

Nigeria: Can Emirs Help Restart Farming?

Food production in Nigeria is not keeping pace with population growth. The question is why? The country is not lacking in arable land and has not had a major drought for many years. So maybe the reason has something to do with changes to the way Nigerian societies are organized.

Nigeria's Deadly Land Clashes

Inhabitants of this village of mud houses in northern Nigeria say they woke December 12 to find 5,000 cattle chomping through their ripe crops. The grain farmers are mostly of the Hausa ethnic group while the cattle owners are Fulani nomads.

"We sent for the police and district head but in the meantime we couldn't just stand by and do nothing," said village representative Maiunguwa Garba. The dispute in this remote part of Katsina province was settled long before any law enforcement arrived.

Nigeria: A Conversation with Economist Shuaibu Idris

In my last blog entry I wrote about the many commercial farms in northern Nigeria that have failed. I wrote that my visiting them did not help me much in fathoming what went wrong with them all. But I have since gotten more clues from talking with various experts such as Shuaibu Idris a development economist and the Executive Director of Dangote Flour Mills. He talked to me about some of the local and international constraints that big farmers face as well as the constraints faced by small peasant farmers.

Nigerians Go Hungry Despite Oil Wealth

I first came to the dry, remote north of Nigeria 25 years ago on a rather strange holiday to visit a Dutchman I knew who had the job of managing a commercial farm there. The farm owner was Usman Dantata, a member of one of Nigeria's wealthiest families. Besides 2,000 hectares of land for cereals, cotton and rows and rows of industrial chicken coops, Dantata's property had a private airstrip, three mansions for each of his three wives, plus two teams of polo horses, some of which I got to ride.

Nigeria: Paralyzed

I first came to the dry, remote north of Nigeria 25 years ago on a rather strange holiday to visit a Dutchman I knew who had the job of managing a commercial farm there. The farm owner was Usman Dantata, a member of one of Nigeria's wealthiest families. Besides 2,000 hectares of land for cereals, cotton and rows and rows of industrial chicken coops, Dantata's property had a private airstrip, three mansions for each of his three wives, plus two teams of polo horses, some of which I got to ride.

Nigeria: Durbah Festival Images

During the annual Durbah festival, over the period of Eid, the various district heads of each Emirate come to their Emir to show their strength in warriors and horsemen and to demonstrate that they are ready to defend his realm.

In former days, farmers would also seek to demonstrate their capacity in food production. The most productive farmers would be rewarded with courtly titles. But the role of the Emir is now largely symbolic; he can no longer offer incentives to increase production.

Nigeria: One Reason for Low Productivity

This weekend Nigerian journalist Abubakar Kabir Matazu invited me to drive with him and his children to his home town of Katsina in the far north of Nigeria to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Katsina is known as a ancient center of Islamic learning and Eid is the day thousands of brightly regaled horsemen parade before the Emir (see photos in my next posting). However I wanted to go to meet Matazu's father Alhaji Kabir Matazu, who is what one might call a middle class Nigerian farmer, and he is struggling.

Nigeria: Massacre in Jos

I arrive in Nigeria with news that hundreds of people have been killed in the town of Jos as a result of fighting between Muslims and Christians. There hasn't been a major outbreak of so-called "religious violence" in Nigeria for years and it was looking like a problem of the past. But the violence has always come as somewhat of a surprise and a mystery.

When I was in Jos earlier in the year I had seen how hard religious and ethnic leaders had worked to mend divisions and change ways people thought of each other.