crustlikereporters

 Every year, government prepare budgets that promise better roads, hospitals, schools, water supply, and other infrastructures. However, when these budgets are poorly implemented because of delays, corruption, weak oversight, or inefficiency, these promised projects are either left unfinished or they never begin in most cases 40-60% and not implemented or they are stolen by those in high authority. The funds automatically “disappear”. The results of this disappearance of budgeted funds is that citizens bear the consequences while those in power tend not to suffer most of these things. 

How bush burning, poverty, and policy failures are scorching Nigeria's future.

The Harmattan came early to Lafia this year. But it wasn't just dry air. It was smoke. It filled school compounds in Jalingo where pupils wore face masks to class in October. It cut short morning jogs in Abuja because the air tasted like campfire. It sent asthmatic patients to hospitals in Port Harcourt before December even began.

For four months every dry season, smoke becomes Nigeria's second atmosphere. From farmlands in Benue to charcoal markets in Rivers, from gas flares in the Delta to generator fumes in Lagos, we set fires and then wonder why the sky turns grey. We burn to plant. We burn to cook. We burn to survive. But every fire has a bill. And Nigeria is paying it with sick children, dead soil, floods that swallow towns, and a future growing thinner by the year. This is the story of that fire. Who lights it. Why they have no choice. And what government, agencies, and all of us must do before there's nothing left to save.

The Fire on the Land

Walk through any village from Benue to Bauchi between November and March and you will see it. Farmers burning to clear land. Hunters burning to flush out game. Charcoal producers burning to feed city kitchens. 
NESREA says over 60% of farmland in North-Central is cleared by fire each year. It feels quick. It feels free. 

The bill comes later.

First, the soil dies. Fire kills the organic matter that holds water. One burn can strip nutrients that took 20 years to build. That's why yields keep falling even when farmers plant more seeds.
Then the floods come. Without trees and grass to hold it, rain rushes down hills and tears through towns. The gullies swallowing homes in Anambra and Enugu start here, on burned slopes 400km away.
Then the air turns poison. Smoke from bush burning mixes with generator fumes and gas flares. NIMET now ranks 8 Nigerian cities as unhealthy for 4 months every dry season. Asthma clinics in Kano and Port Harcourt are full. Children like Mallam Idris's granddaughter are the first to suffer.

The Fire in the Kitchen

But not every fire is lit on a farm. Some are lit in kitchens.
"High cost of fuel makes people to cut down bushes and use firewood,” a Port Harcourt resident told me last week. She asked not to be named. With petrol above 1,300/litre and a 12.5kg gas cylinder refill at 25,000, firewood became survival. Kerosene is scarce and expensive too.
One bag of charcoal now sells for 9,000 in Rivers markets. So the axe replaces the cooker. Trees fall. Bushes burn. Women walk farther each month to find wood.
It's a cruel loop. Poverty forces people to burn. Burning makes the climate worse. Worse climate makes farming harder. Harder farming makes people poorer.
"We burn because we are broke", the woman said. But Nigeria is getting poorer because we burn.

Back in Lafia, Mallam Idris is trying

A youth group from the state university showed him how to use crop residue as mulch. It's more work, he said, wiping sweat. But my granddaughter coughed less last week.
The land is tired. Nigeria is tired. If we keep burning, we will have nothing left to plant. Nothing left to breathe. Nothing left to pass on.

Stop The Burn. Save The Land. Before the fire reaches us all.

Where is Government? 

This is where anger is justified. Nigeria has laws. NESREA's Act bans uncontrolled burning. Most states have anti-bushfire edicts. On paper, we are protected.
In reality, the laws are ghosts.
Where are the extension officers in rural Katsina teaching farmers how to mulch instead of burn? Where are the subsidies for zero-tillage tools? Where is the national reforestation program with real budget and real monitoring?
The Ministry of Environment gives speeches at COP summits in Dubai. Back home, smoke fills villages in Jigawa and nobody shows up with alternatives.
Under the current administration, budgets talk about subsidy removal, naira reforms, inflation. All urgent. But climate is the ground beneath those debates. You can't fix food prices when the land itself is dying. You can't attract investors when Lagos and Port Harcourt choke on smoke for months.
The 2024 and 2025 budgets put less than 1% toward climate adaptation for rural farmers. That's not policy. That's neglect.

What Government and Agencies Must Do Now
Stop The Burn cannot work if firewood and charcoal remain the only affordable option. Government must attack the root: cost of clean energy.

For affordable cooking energy:
1. Targeted gas/kerosene subsidies for low-income homes: Vouchers for 5kg/12.5kg cylinders. If petrol is 1,300/litre, poor families will never choose gas at 25,000.
2. Remove VAT and import duties on LPG cylinders, cookers, stoves: Make equipment cheaper so families can switch from firewood.
3. Revive NNPC/NLNG domestic gas supply scheme: Gas for Nigerians first - more gas for local consumption, not just export.
4. Stabilize kerosene supply and price: NNPCL and marketers must end kerosene scarcity. It's the bridge fuel between firewood and gas for many poor homes.
5. Curb fuel price volatility: Use price stabilization fund and strategic reserves so 1,300 doesn't become 1,800 in 3 months. Predictable prices brings predictable cooking choices.

Role of Agencies and Government:
1. NESREA and State Ministries of Environment: Deploy “Green Extension Officers” to villages with mulching tools, organic fertilizer samples, no-burn training. Educate before you punish.
2. Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service and ADP: Fund research on no-burn land prep. Subsidize equipment. Make no-burn cheaper than burning.
3. Forestry Dept and Community Chiefs: Use community forest guards to monitor. Punish big charcoal cartels and illegal loggers, not struggling farmers. Give farmers alternatives first.
4. Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources: Enforce “no gas flare deadline. Capture flare gas for power/cook-gas. 60 years of flares is policy failure.
5. NIMET and NCDC: Issue real-time air quality alerts and health advisories during Harmattan. Put climate education in primary schools. Use radio dramas in Hausa, Igbo, Pidgin, Tiv. Mallam Idris doesn't need PowerPoint. He needs tools and trust.

The Fire in the Future
  
UNEP warns that desertification is moving south at 0.6km every year. By 2050, Nigeria could lose 40% of its arable land in the North. 
That doesn't just mean hunger. It means migration. It means more clashes between farmers and herders fighting over shrinking land. It means more young people with no choice but to leave.
The smoke you see in December becomes the empty plate you face in August.

Stop The Burn. Save The Land. Before the fire reaches us all.

Emeka a young man in his late 20’s was sitting close to otumbadi junction just a mile from the school he graduated. He looks so stranded rough and tired of life. He graduated with first class in the department of accounting in imo state university, Owerri. 

He have lost complete hope of getting a job someday because he have submitted his CV to more than 100 companies but no positive response or feedbacks for the past 8months every Opportunity to get out of poverty now seem lame. 

As he was sitting outside this hot afternoon close to otumbadi junction under a tree thinking about how life have been unfair to him even after all his successful years in school, A call came in it was his sister she needed to pay her school fees else she won’t be allowed into the classroom. he saw her call but he could sense the weight that is coming from it he knew he was the right person to call at the moment. He looked like life is trying to rob the wretch of poverty on his face. After that call another call came in from his mom, she needed to be discharged from the hospital, it seem like the weight was becoming unbearable for him he was already losing his cool , he became desperate to make money, he needed it to survive so he started stealing to keep up. Unemployment really left a negative impact in the life of emeka, making him to indulge in criminal activities. 

Unemployment can be referred to as the act of being able to work but can’t find a job to earn a living. This is when people who have the ability to work, show willingness to work and are actively looking for work but cannot find any job to sustain their living standards. Unemployment is not laziness. It is when the government fails to create job or the system has more people ready to work than it has jobs to give them. 

Unemployment always have a negative impact on the life of many. For individuals being unemployed often leads to financial instability and can have severe psychological effects, including stress anxiety and diminished sense of self worth. 

According to National bureau of statistics,Nigeria 

“Unemployment rate in Nigeria increased to 4.90 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 from 4.60 percent in the third quarter of 2024. Unemployment rate in Nigeria averaged 4.49 percent from 1991 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 10.70 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 and a record low of 3.70 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013.”

Unemployment is the reason why a country doesn’t develop fully with quality style of living. 

In the society, the level of unemployment and underemployment have had a negative rather than positive effect on individuals in Nigeria. Some of the effects of unemployment on an average Nigerian youth are;poverty,loss of human capital,dependence,loss of identity and low self-esteem, mental stress,social pressure,higher crimes plus vices,brain drain, slower development etc. 

Understanding the effects of unemployment on Nigeria youths is another topic but our main focus is how unemployment helps in the increase of crime and criminal activities in Nigeria. 

A crime is any act or omission that violates the law and is punishable by the state or governing authority. It is considered a wrong against society as a whole and unlike civil disputes, it is resolved through a formal justice system that can results in penalties like fines,probation or imprisonment. Victims of crime often experience trauma,anxiety and emotional distress, which can have long-lasting impacts on their mental well-being. 

Unemployment among Nigeria youths have played a crucial role in their life’s negatively. Many youth now venture into different types of criminal activities due to the decrease / low job opportunity in Nigeria. 

In Nigeria today, unemployment is often described as the driver of crime because it is a major force that pushes many young people towards negative outcomes. 

According to Lagos metropolitan (LM)

“Nigeria produces roughly 700,000-1,000,000 graduates each year and about 8-10 million tertiary graduates between 2015 and 2026.”

According to Research gate 

“Available evidence suggests: During 2016-2018, unemployment among people with tertiary education ranged from about 23% to 32% meaning roughly 68% to 77% were underemployed or working outside their fields.”

With this statistics ,it is obvious that the number of youth who have suffered from unemployment or underemployment are too numerous. When graduates and other youths are unable to find decent jobs, they may experience poverty, frustration and hopelessness. These conditions can expose some individuals to criminal activities. 

In other words, crime is the passenger because it follows where unemployment leads. High unemployment rates among Nigerian youths have resulted to crimes such as armed robbery, internet fraud, kidnapping, drug trafficking, cultism, human trafficking,thuggery etc. Although unemployment does not push every young person to commit crimes, it increases the risk by limiting legitimate opportunities to earn a living. 

Furthermore, Although unemployment in Nigeria is very high and have increased the number of criminal activities across the nation even given it a black paint in the global economy where many Nigerians have been forced to leave the country in search of greener pasture. Unemployment have caused Nigeria to have increase in emigration and a significant lower number of immigrants coming into the country. It is necessary to make some of the following suggestions which can help increase the number of employment and decrease the number of criminal activities in Nigeria to a significant amount. The following are therefore recommended:

Firstly; skill and entrepreneurship, this reduces crime by giving people better options than crime. When people can legally make money, feed themselves and have status the pressure to commit crime drops alot. 

Secondly; agriculture,this helps to reduce crime by giving people food ,money and purpose when people can farm, process, or sell food legally and make a living they are less likely to turn to theft , vandalism or other crimes. 

Thirdly; digital economy,this reduces crime the same way agriculture does by creating legal income,skills and opportunities. When people can earn money online with skills, they have less reason to steal, scam or join gangs. 

Lastly, civil and personal education, this reduces crime by changing how people think , behave and relate to their community. Skills and agriculture gives people money. But civic and personal education gives people values and self-control so they choose not to commit crime even when money is tight. 

 Many student face a difficult challenge that is often hidden from teachers and classmates,such as taking care of sick family members while also trying to succeed in school.These students are called student caregivers.This situation can be very stressful because school itself requires time , energy and concentration. Adding caregivers responsibilities makes life even harder