Any plan to recharge the dried-up, terror-ravaged Lake Chad for a broad range of agricultural production to feed the North-East and, possibly, Nigeria in the foreseeable future may sound Utopian or, at least, inordinately ambitious, to every other Nigerian.
For Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, the governor of Borno State, however, it does not sound so. He believes there is nothing inordinate in the ambition; and it is realizable within the shortest future time.
Zulum seems striking a deal with the Lake to squeeze out of its pathetically dried up southern flank (Nigerian section) the agricultural potentials it (the entire Lake) treasures since time immemorial for what he foresees as the optimum food security benefit of the North-East and, possibly, a major section of the country.
The Lake Chad, which was once the world’s largest water body, has dried up by 90 percent from 1960 to date, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
To restore and sustain the numerous economic and political potentials of the Lake, the union of the its four owner-countries – Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon, established, in May 22, 1964, the Lake Chad Basin Development Commission, headquartered in Ndjamena, the capital of Chad.
Central African Republic joined the union in 1996 and Libya, in 2008.
Over time, the four owner countries, at their respective individual levels, borrowed a leaf from the union by establishing their own commissions/agencies, according to their respective individual needs and aspirations, to resuscitate, develop and harness the prodigiously-promising economic potentials, most especially the agricultural potentials, of the Lake.
However, persistent political troubles, policy inconsistencies and, to the larger extent, global-class terror over the four decades have consorted to not only continue to dwindle the fragile scanty economic activities across the Lake but render all efforts at resuscitating all economic production activities around it rather Utopian.
Amidst the seemingly unending terror, unleashed by Boko Haram and ISWAP terror groups, and the accumulated predicaments of the Lake over the last six decades, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno State, launched a broad agricultural cum economic resuscitation initiatives for the Lake to enable it feed, not only Borno, but the six-state region and, possibly the larger Nigeria; as well as reboot all other economic activities to restore prosperity for post-terror North-East.
He, of crucial imperative, passionately pleads with the Federal Government of Nigeria to execute an urgent project to channel every excess water discharges from internal water bodies towards replenishing the Lake.
“Recharging the Lake Chad from internal water bodies will boost agricultural activities around the Lake and ensure food security for Nigeria,” Zulum was quoted as pleading with the Federal Government through the Minister of Water Resources, Professor Joseph Utsev, Monday, April 22, 2024.
“The Boko Haram insurgency has affected agricultural activities in Borno State, but now that there is an emerging peace, I am here to partner with the Federal Government to see how we shall receive irrigation activities,” he said.
Zulum, a Professor of Agricultural Engineering, has launched an expansive range of investments covering security, reconstruction of educational infrastructure, agricultural resuscitation activities to be carried out by the hundreds of thousands of the IDPs and returnee communities gradually relocated to their ancestral lands. These communities were, before the eruption of Boko Haram insurgency, conducted enviably flourishing agricultural and Nigeria-Niger, Nigeria-Chad and Nigeria-Cameroon transborder trading activities.
He staunchly believes that once agricultural and other economic activities are resuscitated around the Lake, boosting food security and revenue generation for Borno, its sister North-East states and Nigeria, terror is completely defeated.
“A recharged and well-secured Lake Chad has the capacity to feed Nigeria with wheat, rice and other cereals through a broad irrigation project, apart from the immense amount of revenue that could accrue from fish business,” he asserted at one of his numerous visits to the famous Lake Chad shores fishing community of Baga.
The governor expresses deep commitment to assisting the military and other security agencies with the required equipment to guarantee security across and around the Lake for the successful resuscitation of agricultural and transborder economic activities with the three neighbouring countries.
“Our first objective is to see how we can support the Army and the Navy to clear the waterways si that movement by boat from Baga to Chad can commence as soon as possible to revive and enhance transborder transborder trade and agricultural activities,” he disclosed at Baga.
He is heightening his concentration on the Lake shores communities, most especially Baga, where he has launched a programme of boosting the initiatives of farming associations abd transport unions with operational vehicles; and tour farms to support the revival of the South Chad irrigation scheme with initiatives that include subsidizing fuel and providing farm inputs to boost irrigation farming.
The governor is mounting persuasion on the Federal Government to invest in the South Chad irrigation scheme, which is intended to be the launchpad for the expansive agricultural and economic resuscitation projects and programmes for the country’s food security and transborder economic activities.
The once-upon-a-time most thriving internation cattle market between Nigeria on one hand, and Chad and Cameroon, on the other, located at another Lake Chad shores community of Ngala, Gamboru-Ngala Local Government Area, has been resuscitated by the Zulum administration as one of the main sources of cattle for Nigeria.
Zulum’s major attention with regard to the return of displaced communities of the Lake Chad shores to their ancestral homes seems now on Malam-Fatori, headquarters of Abadam Local Government Area.
Since their displaced by Boko Haram insurgents in 2014, the over 100,000 people of Malam-Fatori have been refugees in Diffa in neighbouring Niger Republic. With the liberation of the area from the terrorists’ control by the military, he has been exploring every avenues, most-notably including soliciting the support and assistance of the Federal Government, to repatriate them back home to rebuild prosperous agrarian and transborder trading lives.
With his support and assistance, the Multinational Joint Task Force and Operation Hadin Kai Theater Command have significantly scaled up operations on terrorists locations across and around the Lake Chad basin.
The military claims that most of the Tumbus (islands), which served as rear base, logistics hub and staging ground for attacks for the terrorists, have been in liberated.
For decades preceding terror, the islands and their natural resources were sources of economic opportunities for migrants and local fishing communities, traders, herders and farmers, mostly Kanuri, Fulani, Shuwa-Arab, and Hausa.
The Lake Chad shores is of the most critical importance due to the fact that it holds, for ages, an extraordinary wealth in natural resources for farming, fishing and cattle breeding.
Equally important is the fact that the Lake, occupying sn expansive space at the junction between its four owner countries, creates an immense volume of trading opportunities that spill out of the four countries to North, East and Central Africa.
The aim of Zulum by turning a stern focus and attention on the Lake Chad shores with his programmes and investments, especially through the Borno Model and 25-year development agenda, is to restore that lost glory for a post-terror prosperous, Borno, North-East and Nigeria.
Several, seemingly too formidable, challenges, which may not be surmountable in the foreseeable future, soar between Zulum’s plans, projects and programmes for the South Lake Chad agricultural cum economic initiatives and the possibility of their achievement, considering what he may have foreseen, standing at the peak of his tall ambition.
Boko Haram/ISWAP terror activities have, at frustrating levels, really endured across the Tumbus of the Lake and majority of the farming and fishing communities along the shores of the Lake. Majority of agricultural and economic activities are glaringly still controlled by the terrorists, who seize the farm produce and catches of majority of the farming and fishing communities.
This situation does not show signs of abating in the foreseeable future, in spite of every military propaganda and claims of clearing the Lake Chad basin of what it has continued to describe as remnants of the terrorists.
Wallowing in pathetic vulnerability portrayed by abject indigence and persistent fragility due to prolonged displacement, majority of the returnee communities do not seem able to acquire sufficient readiness for the large-scale agricultural activities that could guarantee the realization of Zulum’s Lake Chad project.
Recharging Lake Chad with discharges from Nigeria’s internal water bodies as the required key foundation for the resuscitation of all agricultural and other economic activities seem Utopian.
Apart from Zulum and a group of few Borno elders, no Nigerian is known in recent times to have called, or still call, for such project. The Nigerian government does not seem contemplating any gargantuan project in the vicinity of channelling excess water from the hinterland to replenish the Lake Chad.
The recharging project itself has to be with the full participation of the union of all the original four owner-countries of the Lake and its two associate members – Central African Republic and Libya.
Those countries have not formulated any serious policy towards that, at least in recent decades. The terror raging across the Lake Chad basin would certainly unable the implementation of such policies.
There have mounting claims by the military at both the MNJTF and Nigerian levels about the rapid degradation of terror across and around the basin.
Has terror been degraded sufficiently across the region to guarantee the execution of any such gargantuan historic project? Has the military or any other relevant authority given any such assurance?
What could be the regional sociopolitical implications to and reactions of the three other sister owner-countries of the Lake and the two associates in the event of the envisaged expansive project thriving at the shores of the Nigerian side/Southern flank of the Lake without any commensurate projects at their respective sides?
With the current pathetic state of the Lake and the enduring terror across and around it, what are the possibilities of internal and global investors carting in their funds for the project? Can the governments of Borno and Nigeria fund the project alone?
The physical, sociopolitical and economic situation of the Lake seems to precipitate uncountable posers on the possibility of the actualization of the Zulum ambitious Lake Chad project. Time will tell.
