The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Social Warfare and Poverty Alleviation, Senator David Jimkuta, who represents Taraba South in the National Assembly, announced that a security report verified the deaths of more than 700 of his constituents from Ussa and Takum Local Government Areas of Taraba State in just three months.

He went on to say that more than fifty communities in the LGAs have been destroyed by criminal activities. Senator Jimkuta delivered these statements to journalists on Tuesday in Wukari, his hometown and the capital of Wukari Local Government Area.

He was worried about the bandits that were destroying Takum and Ussa, especially Ussa, where many of the farmers had fled to safety. He cautioned that this scenario might soon cause a food shortage in the state.

Jimkuta called on security agencies working in the state to step up their efforts in order to drive out bandits from their strongholds and let farmers carry out their regular operations in order to keep Nigeria from devolving into food insecurity.“Why not collaborate with locals for accurate information and take the fight directly to the bandits’ hideouts? We know where they are; let’s flush them out. These areas are major food producers, and with people displaced and unable to access their villages, we are facing a looming food crisis,” Jimkuta suggested.

In order to allow farmers to return to their farms, the senator also urged President Bola Tinubu to declare a state of emergency on security in the Takum-Ussa districts.