Lai Mohammed blames ‘Boko Haram’ for tomato scarcity; ‘climate change’ for herdsmen attacks

Minister of information and culture, on Wednesday, said terrorist sect, Boko Haram is responsible for the scarcity of tomatoes in the country.

The price of tomato has in the last two months, sky-rocketed and millions of Nigerians were compelled to find a substitute for the staple.

Although the Minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbeh had attributed the scarcity to tuta absoluta, a pest popularly called ‘tomato ebola’, the Information minister says it’s all because ‘we lost two years harvest to Boko Haram’.

Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, Mohammed said, “People talk about the price of tomato but they forget one thing: they forget that the price of tomato today is a direct result of the fact that we have lost two years harvest to Boko Haram insurgency.”

“Most of the people you see riding Okada (motorcycles) in Lagos are people who would have been in the farm to produce consumable items.”

“We have lost two seasons of harvest, in addition we have had very poor rainfall last year and this year. These are the combined factors responsible for the scarcity of tomato. Go and ask economists and agriculturists, they will tell you.”

Lai Mohammed also blamed climate change for the incessant clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers.

“When you look at the herdsmen and farmers clashes, I think its neglect of many years. More than 15, 20 years ago, we were warned all over the world that as a result of climate change there could be conflicts and we should take steps to avert such clashes, but we did not listen.”

“What is happening is that there is a gradual reduction in natural resources. If you take Lake Chad for instance, it has lost almost 90% of its waters over a couple of years and Lake Chad sustained and supported livelihood of farmers and fishers, with the loss of waters, you see a migration southwards. Now government all over the world were warned that these were the consequences of climate change.”

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