An environmentalist, Dr. Kabir Abdulkadir, has added his voice to the growing number of people who believe that the Boko Haram insurgence and other security challenges in the Northern part of the country have more to do with issues other than religion.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja, yesterday, Abdulkadir who is the founder of the Greenshield of Nations, a non-governmental organisation said that the struggle for the few available plots land in the country is the cause of the many security challenges facing the nation.
He said: “We are being consumed by environmental challenges. Our cities are full of young people from the arid zone where land is scarce because of the effect of desertification. These young people know nothing but farming.
“When these settlers start getting political power, then the original land owners bring up the issue of settlers and land owner which throw up crises. I state emphatically that there are no religious but environmental crises in the country.
As a way out of the present imbroglio, Dr Abdulkadir canvassed for a holistic look at the jatropha plant which he says remains the solution to desertification and gully erosions that have eaten deep into the country’s land mass.