Just before the start of crop planting in May, Abdullahi Hassan Wagini visited a neighbor's farm in northern Nigeria to confer on how to prepare the fields. As the two men were chatting, bandits opened fire on them. Wagini managed to flee, while his friend stayed behind to protect his cattle. He was found dead in a pool of blood, his cows gone. Such killings have become more prevalent in a country where working the lan d is often a dangerous occupation. On top of longstanding religious and ethnic tensions, the last few years have seen a spike in criminal activity by armed gangs that extort money from villagers by holding people, land, and livestock for ransom. Factor in climate change, and it's not difficult to understand why farmers in the once-fertile northern regions have been moving to the cities in droves.
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