The year 2019 ended with many Nigerians and, indeed, people across the world switching from being entertained for months by the unrelenting students revolt in Hong Kong to the horrifying outbreak of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan Province of China.
To those living in distant lands from China, it initially appeared like the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or any of those usually frequent viral epidemics in South East Asia for which there already exist known cures and prevention protocols. Even the Chinese did not seem to know what hit them until the casualty figures became alarming to the extent that lockdowns were declared in the worst affected cities and regions.
For the Nigerians and others watching from across the globe, it was perhaps their first time of seeing entire city streets and other usually swarming public places being deserted, with violators arrested and prosecuted. Perhaps, and also for the first time, many watched in utter astonishment as an ultra-modern health facility was built and equipped in just three days.
As the Chinese authorities concealed the daily infection and death figures, it became difficult for the outside world to actually assess the devastating nature of the novel virus. But Beijing’s body language was sufficient to suggest that the people’s republic was in very serious trouble.
Seeing this situation, therefore, not even the revolting Hong Kong students waited for any further persuasion to halt their protest before scampering home for safety. It was as bad as that.
But not until cases of COVID-19 began to be reported outside China, particularly in Europe and the United States did the world realise that it had been hit by a pandemic.
COVID-19 was, therefore, a very big lesson and pointer to the fact that the world is increasingly becoming a global village and people should begin to pay more serious attention to events unfolding elsewhere, regardless of distance.
This brings us to the issue of the ongoing locust invasions of farmlands starting from the Horn of Africa down to the East and now, Southern Africa.
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Kenya have since been reported to suffer the devastating effects of the African Migratory Locust (AML) which swarmed farmlands across these countries. Egypt and Sudan, in the north, had earlier been infested.
Now, the Southern African countries of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Botswana are said to be facing serious outbreaks of the itinerant insects.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has since alerted that the food situation in the affected regions would worsen if nothing was done to stop a spread of the swarms. Already a number of victim nations had been warned of famine occasioned by droughts and other effects of climate change. The UN body had, therefore, appealed for $138 million in urgent funding to partly support affected communities and also fight the spread of the swarming insects.
According to research experts, better monitoring is required to effectively predict the migration patterns and growth of these locusts; just as alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides are needed to stop these insects from breeding in their large numbers.
Owing to lack of funds to undertake extensive aerial spraying of chemicals and other modern preventive methods, local farmers usually resort to self-help using traditional methods, including manual spraying of insecticides, erection of scare crows and physical waving of cloths over expansive farmsteads in an almost futile effort to ward off the invading insects.
A report had it that the first evidence of locust swarms devastating vegetation on a large scale across West Africa was recorded in northern Nigeria around mid-August 2004. The affected states were Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi.
According to Mustapha Shehu, the then spokesman of Sokoto State Government, “We hired an aircraft to spray insecticides to stop further spread. We need help from wherever we can get it because the locusts are in such great numbers that we cannot handle the situation alone”.
The same source documented another locust invasion in mid-September 2006 when crops were destroyed as farmers prepared for harvest.
Diyos Auta, then Taraba State Agriculture Commissioner was quoted as saying that “These pests migrated from neighbouring Cameroon and they move like clouds and, so far, they have destroyed 50,000 hectares of crops which were ripe for harvest”.
Nigeria, being neighbour to some countries on the fringes of the Sahara Desert makes her susceptible to invasion by a particular species of these locusts. It, therefore, behoves the government, especially those in the north, to initiate efforts at ensuring timely and anticipatory action to prevent heavy losses from damages to crops and pastures in the event of any such outbreak.
It would be natural to assume that whatever the government had in its grain silos (if such still exist) may have been depleted during the bid to distribute the COVID-19 palliatives. But to what degree has there been a restocking in order to tackle any new emergencies?
The nation’s economy is already in a shambles, having reportedly relapsed into another recession so soon. The current food shortages resulting from Boko Haram insurgency, herder/farmer clashes, droughts, perennial flooding and import restrictions should not be allowed to get worse than it already is. Therefore, keeping an eye on locusts will not be a bad idea, after all.

By: Ibelema Jumbo