The dry, dusty trade wind, blows over the West African subcontinent thinly coating surfaces with dust, cracking up skins and drying up moisture in the atmosphere. Harmattan – the yearly phenomenon which sends winds from the Sahara Desert into the Gulf of Guinea has brought with it a period of hotter days and colder nights than experienced in recent years.

The earth is getting warmer; climate change is tipping on the negative.

The Great Green Wall Project or Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative is a planned project to plant a wall of trees across Africa at the southern edge of the Sahara desert as a means to prevent desertification. It was developed by the African Union to address the detrimental social, economic and environmental impacts of land degradation and desertification in the Sahel and the Sahara.

Contributing to improved local incomes, the Great Green Wall will be a global answer to the combined effect of natural resources degradation and drought in rural areas. The Initiative is a partnership that supports the effort of local communities in the sustainable management and use of forests and other natural resources in drylands.
The bulk of the work on the ground was initially slated to be concentrated along a stretch of land from Djibouti, in the east to Dakar, Senegal, in the west—an expanse 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide and 7,775 kilometers (4,831 miles) long. The project later expanded to include countries in both northern and western Africa.

In 2007, during the eight ordinary session of the Conference of Heads of State and Governments held on January 29 and 30, 2007 in Addis-Ababa (Ethiopia), African Heads of State and Government endorsed the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative.
Subsequently, in June 2010, a convention was signed by Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan in Ndjamena, Chad, to create the Great Green Wall (GGW) Agency which created the Panafrican Agency of the Great Green Wall (PAGGW).

The land degradation experienced is a factor of both human-related and natural activities; poor farming activities, overgrazing, illegal waste management, and extreme weather are the most common causes.
It is estimated that 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by land degradation which poses threats to agricultural productivity which is a main source of livelihood.

The project’s $2 billion budget, stemming largely from World Bank co-financing and partnerships fostered by the African Union, ensures participating countries will have the means to see the project through to the end. Examples of success include more than 50,000 acres of trees planted in Senegal.

Figure 1: The expected growth path of the GGW project

Implementation of the project in Nigeria takes place in eleven frontline States of Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Yobe and Borno. Covering over 43 LGAs and rehabilitate 225,000 Hectares of land.

The Follow The Money team decided to do on-site visit in November 2015 to the projects in Kebbi [Bachaka], Kano [Kadandanni] and Jigawa [Jeke]; Kebbi because the GGW was flagged – off in Kebbi State in November 2014, Kano to compare the success of the GGW to the state’s government reforestation program, and Jigawa because it shares an international border with the Republic of Niger.

Abubakar Maiyaki (Mai Yakin Bachaka) the deputy of the traditional leader of Bachaka said the Great Green Wall project has made significant impact in their community. “Community members have undergone training and recruited as forest and security guards, an orchard was created where economic trees were planted, shelter belts were also planted and are flourishing, two boreholes were provided to the community, social mobilization and sensitization of the community on the importance of tree planting were carried out, school children were trained on how to plant trees and gardening”

For Maiyaki, the Great Green Wall project provides an opportunity to empower and educate the community on the importance of tree planting

In Kano, the team visited Kadandanni community in Makoda LGA and welcomed by Adamu Abdullahi, the traditional leader of the community who expressed that the community were initially excited about the project; an optimism that has waned with the passing months.

“The Kadandani inhabitants are much aware about the benefit of planting trees, owing to awareness and training programmes by the government, but it has had its own challenges, at the beginning of the GGW, we were promised water, an important amenity to us and our livestocks, but looking back, this is not the case if you visit the proposed site for this amenities”

Abdullahi felt that the project had become politicised as the norm with pressing issues in Nigeria.
An assessment of the existing infrastructure in the community showed poor maintenance of the solar powered pumps for water – the borehole had stopped working six months ago, the storage shed for tools had been blown away winds earlier, the orchard was drying up and dying.

The team also met with the representative of the women association, Hajiya Mari who was selected to head to Katsina state for 2-day seminar on the importance of the project. Mari said they were trained on how to grow plants and given date seedlings to plant in the community to fight off desertification, and she has planted 10 in her house.

The story isn’t any different at Jeke, a dry community located in Sule Tankarkar LGA in Jigawa state. Yakubu Magaji, the community leader who took the team to inspect the site of the project expressed dismay at the state of the nursery, orchard and wind-powered borehole.

“The wind is not strong enough to fully power the borehole”

Magaji says as the community has to subsidise using the borehole three times a week to generate water needed.

MOVING ON …
As much as the Great Green Wall project is seen as means to reduce the expansion of the Sahara into Nigeria, it represents an opportunity to restore land once rich with biodiversity and vegetation. There is a commitment by the Federal Government of Nigeria and other governments to the project but the pace is almost negligible.

If the project comes to fruition, it can really help the sub-Saharan part of Africa and the continent on a whole in its drive to help the climate, provide a means of empowering communities and create a large social impact.

How does doing a community outreach in a state where a suicide bomber just killed so many lives sounds like? Yes we were in Kano, when the tragedy struck, but many times this would not distract us like someone said during our radio engagement “I think the Follow The Money team are a group of Nigerians that are never shaken, even in the light of insecurity in the North”.Maybe the next conversation, might be – “How do you manage it?”

We are typical Nigerians that follows not only money for good, but our passion pushes us, and so same passion took us to Kadandani in Makoda Local Government of Kano State. Estimated to have a population of 6,000 with one primary and secondary school each, only one source of water that  thrives on an alternative power – the AC generator;and a clinic that has only one midwife attending to patients.

                                            The Shelter Belt initiated by the Kano State Government two decades ago

Kadandani has a long stretch of shelterbelts, which made us think the community might be thriving on economical trees “Each woman in the community has four Date trees she nurtures, hoping that in future years, we will reap from each Date fruit”  affirmed Hajiya Mari the head of the women association in Kadandani who recently attended a 2 days seminar on the importance of the Great Green Wall project and they were directed to submit their registration and bank account details which they did. She mentioned that same project was initiated by the Kano State government and has been in existence 4 years ago. “The huge shelter belts surrounding our community is an initiative of the state government, it started decades ago, but what we hope for now is that the government can now provide processing machines for peanuts harvested by our women, as such we can make kuli-kuli in large scale” explained Mari

The Great Green Wall (GGW) project in Kadandani has lived to its expectation with awareness, trainings and shortcomings in unfulfilled promises of water and social projects. “The Kadandani inhabitants are much aware about the benefit of planting trees, owing to awareness and training programmes by the government, but it has had its own challenges, at the beginning of the GGW, we were promised water, an important amenity to us and our livestocks, but looking back, this is not the case if you visit the proposed site for this amenities” explained Adamu Abdullahi, community head of Kadandani

                                           The FTM team with key groups in the community – from top left is Hajiya Mari

100m away from the fences of their mud – thatched roofs, is located a “drying up” orchard  with a solar powered tank, which was meant to generate 10 water points for the community, and  a livestock water storage trough. “6 months after this was installed, it stopped working, and since then we have written to the federal government, but there has not been any response and the nurseries and orchards are getting dried up” – says Adamu. But one would have thought that the community would have invested or carry on the burden of sustaining the project, “When there was no response, I had to start using sprinklers and trying to raise new orchards, and I encouraged other community members to do as well, but we can only do a little” Shehu Ibrahim, the owner of one of the 5 hectares of land which the community offered to the federal government for this project.

Speaking with the Director, Forestry Department of the State Ministry of Environment, he clearly affirmed the situation in not only Kadandani “although we are trying to restore this water source for the plants, livestock and the people, its been challenging getting the contractors to fix the water tanks properly, and this is not peculiar to Kadandani, we have 5 shelter belts in other 3 other communities in Makoda, and we need to provide water at each communities for the GGW  to survive” explained Danusa Ibrahim, Director, Forestry Department.

                           The orchard and nursery site in Kadandani, just behind is the non-functional 10 water points

Little wonders, why laudable social projects in local communities gets abandoned at the height of hysteria, perhaps, no thinks about its sustainability, or projects are initiated to gain political integrity. “Although as a lead, I have been more enlightened about the benefits of projects like GGW, as we have seen in Zinder, Niger during one of our field trips, it is more important to consult the local communities first before starting social projects like this, also I will advise stakeholders such as lawmakers from these communities should take the lead in some of these consultations, this can help in the sustainability of the project” Miyaki said
So what happens to Kadandani afterwards? As these kind of stories interests us at FTM, we will be looking at every opportunity to get water to the 5,000 people that inhabits Kadandani; and not just to forget their livestocks and flora that exist in their community. If you are in Kano, and you think you want to join in tracking the 70 million Naira that was meant for Kadandani which might lead to getting back water to the 5,000 inhabitants, join us now!

In Kebbi State, nothing must have mattered to them , other than their dry season crop planting, but there is a community that is doubting how much they can make, off the planting season – Bachaka, with an estimated population of 5,000 with 1 health center, a primary and secondary school, and the community thrives on four water hand pumps.

The FTM Team engages the Deputy Head of Community at Bachaka on prospects and challenges of the GGW

In November 2014, Bachaka became the first of 200 communities that would benefit from the Great Green Wall (GGW) project. A project that hopes to provide 1,500km of shelter belt from Kebbi to Borno State; provide water and social projects in 200 beneficiary communities. Lurked away from the city center of Kebbi, Birnin Kebbi, and just 40km away from the Republic of Niger in Arewa Local Government Area, there seems to have been an appreciable progress in Bachaka , since the inception of the GGW, a year ago.

“We have two representatives from our community that was sent on trainings and site visits to Zinder, Niger; there has been several awareness programmes as well, especially in making an income from planting economic trees, likewise there is a Ministry of Environment representative who visit here monthly” highlighted Abubakar Maiyaki (Mai Yakin Bachaka), Deputy Head of Community in Bachaka

The 1km shelterbelt in Bachaka is thriving, and has had its forest guards and security guards in place watching over it, but there are challenges as well. “Since we started about 4 months ago, we have not been paid our salaries and that has been frustrating for us and our families, as such we urge the government to come to our plight.” complained one of the security guards.

                                                  In the background is the spoilt solar and wind powered water tank

Shelter belts projects cannot survive without the provision of orchards and nurseries, so that other trees can be planted by the community, but their is a setback for this in Bachaka.” We have written the Federal Ministry of Environment times without number, to come and fix the solar wind powered tank since it stopped working , as all the nurseries and orchards are getting dried up.

In Bachaka, two solar powered tanks were installed: One that provides water source to the shelter belt, and another one that provide water for the orchard and nursery.The latter was at first a wind powered water tank which broke down some days after it was installed, it was then replaced by a solar source which also stopped working just 3 months ago, because the pump for the water was stolen! “Farmers that rely on the broken down water source cannot plant this dry season, as their crops get dried up, just like the orchards are already drying up, the tank should be fixed as soon as possible” said Ashiru Mohammed, one of the security men in charge of the orchards.

                                    The nursery for the Acacia, Doum Palm and the Date Palm already drying up in Bachaka

Ashiru Mohammed was not only the security in charge of the orchards, surprisingly, he doubled as the owner of the land, and pleaded with the government to pay him is compensation for acquiring his land. Ashiru made us understand that he was only looking after the place because of the passion after one of the sensitization programme in Bachaka. Umar Musa, the Director of forestry at the Kebbi State Government affirmed some of the plights of other shelter belts in Kebbi, and was really skeptical about the success of the GGW, if their is not a new direction for the laudable project.
So why, who and how was the pump for the solar powered tank stolen, perhaps there was no guard for the orchard before now, and many times we get cases of stolen pumps when solar powered tanks are installed in rural communities, Bachaka isn’t the first and might not be the last. Despite the progress since the GGW was flagged off in Bachaka, there are too many challenges of consolidating gains with local stakeholders, thus posing a challenge to the sustainability of the GGW in Kebbi State as a whole.In the next coming months, we will be catching up on stories from Bachaka, and how the water issues will be solved to allow farmers continue their dry crop farming.