WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-04-05 Time: 20:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Imam Imam
Lagos – When in 1969, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) issued a report that recommended the establishment of a small dam and irrigation scheme at Talata Mafara of present day Zamfara State, apprehension grew among the residents surrounding the area who feared that their century-old means of livelihood would be damaged. The FAO report emphasised the importance of a gradual approach that would have minimal impact on existing land use patterns, in part because of lack of experience with irrigation projects in the region.
Despite the anxiety of the people, the Yakubu Gowon-led military government, in 1971, invited proposals for design and supervision of the project and, in 1972, awarded the job to Impresit Bakolori Nigeria, a company owned by both the Nigerian government and FIAT. During the 1972-1974 study period the scope of the project expanded to cover a single large dam and a large-scale mechanised irrigation scheme.
The building of what has now become Bakolori Dam began in 1974 and was completed in 1978, after which it took three years for the reservoir to fill. The dam is a 5.5 km earth-fill embankment, with a central concrete structure 360m long and 48m high incorporating a small 3MW hydroelectric power plant.
The irrigation pipes and canals were not completed until 1983 and covered only 23,000 hectares compared to 30,000 hectares originally planned. Water was delivered to 15,000 hectares by sprinklers and to 8,000 hectares by gravity. Sprinklers are expensive, but make more efficient use of water if well maintained. After cost overruns, the irrigation project ended up as one of the most expensive per hectare in the world.
The dam is a major reservoir on the Sokoto River, a tributary of the Rima River, which in turn feeds the Niger River. Water from the dam supplies the Bakolori Irrigation Project. The dam has a capacity of 450 million cubic meters, with a reservoir covering 8,000 hectares extending 19 km upstream. The Sokoto River runs through the semi-arid Sudan Savannah zone of northern Nigeria.
Annual rainfall is unpredictable, ranging from 500 mm to 1,300 mm per year during the June-September period. Before construction of the dam, about 50,000 farmers in the Sokoto River floodplain practiced intensive recession farming, growing rice and sorghum in the wet season and vegetable crops such as onions, garlic and tomatoes in the dry season. Many farmers used the Shadoof practice of lifting water from the river to pour into irrigation channels or ponds.
Women in purdah do not usually work the field but do have ownership rights and assist in processing. Women who are not under seclusion are active in farming. Often the land was owned communally without formal records of ownership. Farmers in the area, living at subsistence levels, were more concerned with avoiding risk than maximising profit. The area is subject to periodic droughts, and the desire for a stable water supply was one of the motives for constructing the dam.
Over three decades after the construction of the dam, things are at a standstill in Maradun, where the giant project stands. In the course of those 30 years, various governments have paid what can best be described as lip service to the development of the dam, as well as its impact on the surrounding host communities. However, as the nation’s clamour to diversify its economy sounds louder in the direction of agricultural revolution, the Dam, which employed more than twenty-three thousand hecters of land for rice production, is now regrettably incapacitated, partly due to long period of neglect by government and the deliberate vandalisation of some facilities by the local communities.
Experts at the site told THISDAY that the Dam now requires about N10b for general rehabilitation to recoup it to its initial capacity, as disclosed by the Managing Director of Sokoto Rima River Basin Development Authority (SRRBDA) Alhaji Danlami Bala Zango. He said the Dam, which accommodated about 450 million cubic meters body of water, used to facilitate large scale fish farming, poultry as well as generation of about three mega watts of electricity supply to the local community.
However, recent findings indicate that almost every facility related to the Dam is in serious state of disrepair. THISDAY investigations showed that the Dam has never been de-silted since its construction, a scenario, which depicts the typical characteristics of the Nigerian society bereft of maintenance culture. In the circumstance, due to the deteriorating capacity of the Dam, only one-third of the total size of the irrigable land, reflecting about 8000 hectres, is now being utilised by dry seasons farmers, while the bigger part of the area is laying waste.
Umar Muhammadu Maradun, a farmer in the area, told THISDAY that the whole project is like an elephant project whose benefits are not being felt as it should. “This area used to be one of the major source of the nation’s rice requirement as a good supplementing for import, but now the situation is different because everything about the Dam is in disarray,” he said.
The managing director of the River Basin Alhaji Danlami Zango is in charge of four states comprising of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Katsina and Bakolori Dam is directly under the control of his management. At a recent facility tour of the irrigation sites, Zango revealed that a multi-million-naira contract has been awarded to Haiper Link Nigeria Limited for the rehabilitation of dilapidated irrigation canals spread across Maradun, Talata Mafara, and Bakura local government areas of Zamfara State.
In an interview with journalists in Bakura rice fields, Zango said: “It is true that the problems are so many and multi-dimensional. As you can see, almost all the irrigation sprinklers are vandalised by the local communities, while the canals are in bad shape, including the Dam itself, which is in need of great attention. This is why the Federal Government is now giving required attention to ensure that normal activities are restored to capacity as part of its policy to improve food security. The programme has the potentials of providing a good percentage of food requirements for the nation as well as creating employment for millions of farmers.
“As you see me now, I am with a team of some of my executive directors on inspection tour to see the level of on-going rehabilitation works on the canals. The contract for the job was issued at the cost of N220m, which was due to be completed in December last year. However, because of the enormity of the problems on ground, about N10b would be needed for the total rehabilitation of the site, including the de-silting of the Dam.
“Already, 15 per cent mobilisation fee has been paid to the contractor working on the rehabilitation of the damaged canals. The de-silting becomes necessary because formally it used to accommodate about 450 million cubic meters of water but now due to long years of siltation from contributory rivers, the Dam could not hold so much. Government is keen about the total rehabilitation of the whole irrigation programme and in the very near future everything will be put in order.”
To some experts, the construction of the dam, with land leveling, clearing and canal construction destroyed valuable farmland and trees. According to them, the local farmers became landless peasants. The downstream floodplain farmers required large-scale water release before the growing season, with diminished flows later as they practiced flood recession agriculture. The dam operators were not sensitive to this need, releasing insufficient water at inappropriate times.
The dam significantly decreased peak flows and the depth, duration and extent of flooding downstream during the wet season. It also reduced the total amount of water available for farming, since a large sheet of water in a hot and arid area loses much to evaporation. In the downstream areas, of a total of 19,000 hectares of floodplain land, the dam resulted in loss of 7,000 hectares of rice production and 5,000 hectares of dry season crops. This loss was partially offset by increases in lower-value millet and sorghum production, but 12,000 people were forced to move. The loss of agricultural output has been valued at US$7 million annually.
The reservoir has a relatively small littoral area, which limits the size of spawning and nursery areas of most fish species. The water is turbid, holding suspended soil particles that block the light and inhibit growth of submerged aquatic plants on which fish depend for food. This limits the capacity of the reservoir for fish production. The reservoir is less productive than the river and the river’s natural lakes and pools.
Within the irrigation area, the higher water table combined with high evaporation rates has caused salinisation, which has already ruined half of the irrigable land. There were also higher levels of water-born diseases. Attempts to introduce new varieties of cowpea inter-cropped with millet, sorghum and groundnuts had little success due to the relatively low yield of this traditional crop and the high cost of the irrigation systems. By 2003, the sprinkler system was no longer operational and only 7,500 hectares were being cultivated, mostly for rice, using gravity-fed irrigation. Land was left waste. Many residents drifted away to the cities. The Bakolori Dam resulted in a 53 per cent decrease in the usable cropped area.
The authors of a classic report on Wise use of wetlands published by UNESCO in 1988 concluded that “a more complete economic appraisal of the scheme at Bakolori would have been less favourable than the calculation upon which it was approved.” While the problems seem to be compounding by the day, the Zamfara State government said it will continue to explore all avenues to make the best use of the dam for the benefit of the people of the state.
The state government said the potential for the development of rice in areas surrounded by Bakolori Dam is high, as such the government will do all it can to join the league of rice exporting territories of the world by the year 2012. In that regard, the government last year signed a memorandum of understanding with Hanseng Corporation of South Korea for the development and enhancement of rice fields situated at the Maradun plain in the state.
The State Commissioner for Industries, Commerce and Cooperatives, Alhaji Sani Ibrahim Gummi said the agreement is in furtherance of the state government’s objective of being among rice producing states in the country. He said the overall objective of the agreement is to pave way for the exportation of rice in the next few years.
According to him, the high demand for rice globally will likely not abate in the near future, as such all avenues will be explored to make the state and the country self-sufficient in rice production. Gummi said the state has put necessary machinery on ground to ensure massive and accelerated rice cropping, which will be cultivated year round. He said the Korean firm would supply modern technology in running the farms, while the state will provide land and other capitals necessary for the production exercise.
He said the state government has put necessary machinery on ground to ensure massive and accelerated rice cropping, which will be cultivated year round. He said the Korean firm would supply modern technology in running the farms, while the state will provide land and other capitals necessary for the production exercise. The commissioner said government has provided loans and other incentives to local farmers for them to embrace the new farming method and also to boost their morale with a view to realising government’s overall objective in the exercise.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 5 April 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201004050590.html?viewall=1