Governor Umar Bago of Niger State has disclosed his administration’s plan to reclaim all lands currently housing bandits across the state.
Bago explained that the reclaimed lands would be used for economic purposes.
The governor made this known while rolling out plans by his administration to end insecurity bedeviling the state.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja on Wednesday, the governor announced the first ever subnational summit on the green economy.
According to Bago, his “government plan is to take over all lands currently housing bandits across the state and put them into economic use.”
He said the government has discovered that most of the land currently being occupied by the “bandits are not governed and therefore plans to take over such land for vast agricultural purpose.”
The governor also disclosed that the state government has banned mining activities in the state while making arrangements to create ranches for cattle.
Governor Bago announced plans to procure heavy duty equipment in readiness for the next planting season, adding that it will cultivate about 250,000 hectares of farmland in 2024.
He also said that it is presently clearing about 300,000 hectares of land and will, in the next six months be planting about 10 million trees across the state.
The governor disclosed that his administration has entered into an agreement with some state governments in the southwestern part of the country on the stoppage of transporting cattle to the South.
“We have agreed that cattle will no longer be transported to the South. They will stop at Mokwa where we are setting up a processing plant which will process them before they are transported to the south,” the governor said.
He said further that the state government has banned mining in the state and will no longer allow those involved to operate in the state even when they come with a license from the Federal Government.
