Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello says over 50 villages across five local government areas in the state have been deserted.
He said the development has caused a humanitarian crisis.
Bello disclosed this when he declared open a two-day workshop on strategies for enhancing Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Local Government Councils in Minna, Niger State .
He said: “As we speak we have not less that 50 villages deserted across 5 local governments now where do we get the resources to take care of them if 80% of our resources goes to those that do not add value to the system?
“Now we have to deal with humanitarian problems and security problems. All these require resources that we do not have. So the only way we can survive is to increase our IGR.
“At the moment we have over 3,000 IDPs in Minna, apart from other local governments.”