The National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW) has raised the alarm over desert encroachment threatening 11 northern states.Its Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Sale Abubakar, raised the alarm while speaking at the 10th anniversary celebration of the agency in Dutse, the capital of Jigawa State.

He said the region has been witnessing a lot of environmental problems in places like Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi and Katsina states, a situation that has worsened the security situation in the affected states.

Abubakar said the agency had taken steps to address the problem through the distribution and planting of about 50 million date palms and other species of trees in the affected states.

His words: “The plantations are there to combat desertification and mitigate the impending effects of climate change, which the country has been experiencing in the past years, especially in the far northern part of the country.”

He explained that the date-palm planting initiative is part of their strategic efforts to combine economic development with the fight against environmental degradation.

He maintained that the 50 million date-palm seedlings would be distributed to women and youths for planting across the 11 states over five years, starting with five million seedlings in 2025.

Flagging off the palm-tree planting exercise on Sunday at Yusufari, Yobe State, the NAGGW boss noted: ‘Today’s tree planting campaign in the Yusufari border community with Niger is a continuation of the greening of 11 desert-affected states in the North to mark the agency’s 10th anniversary.”