RUGA OUTRAGE: Anger, bitterness spread across the country

Last week’s move by the Federal Government to push through what had been rumoured for so long by implementing the Ruga settlement policy for Fulani herdsmen has thrown the southern part of the country into panic. The nation has suddenly come to terms with the reality of the policy with the announcement by the Benue state government protesting the construction of the settlement by the Ministry of Agriculture in the state without the governor’s consent.

However, the government has come under intense criticism as most southern and Middle Belt leaders and governors have not only condemned the moved but rejected its implementation, describing it as an “ethnic land grabbing agenda.”

While hosting members of the NYSC in Daura in 2016, Buhari had, in an offhand remark, wondered where those who are agitating for the separation of the country wanted them to go when there is increasing desert encroachment in the North and Lake Chad was drying up. His comments had raised eyebrows, but it would be his seeming lack of willingness to bring an end to killings by suspected Fulani herdsmen that had triggered suspicions of a conquest agenda.

With last week’s surprise announcement of Ruga settlements for the herders, many insist, is part of what they believe to be an agenda to take over people’s lands and hand them to Buhari’s Fulani ethnic herders.

“The Ruga policy is amazement to sane minds. We are still struggling to understand why the Federal Government is pursuing the private business of an ethnic group. They are announcing it and are providing all the logistics,” wondered Chief Okey Okoroji, lawyer and chieftain of the All Progressive Grand Alliance.

“It is not about mere cattle rearing. Those who have benefit of history will understand that the Fulani have steadily sought, and still seeks to conquer Southern Nigeria. And it’s not just for Islamisation purposes alone, but also for political and economic conquest,” he said.

“They want to establish their emirates here and there and rule over the indigenous people. They have used warfare in the past; they succeeded in Northern Nigeria and parts of the Middle Belt. But they now understand that there is no need to use brute force anymore since their man is in power and is the arrow head of that agenda.”

Okoroji alleged that, “Ruga is a strategic step by the Fulani to conquer Southern Nigeria and they are not pretending about it. They have said so. And they are prepared to resort to violence if you resist that. If you look at the volume of arms in the hands of Miyetti Allah and the herdsmen, you would have reason to be seriously concerned.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “there is a lack of cohesion in Southern Nigeria, that would have made resistance against the onslaught easy. I can’t see synergy in the response. People are singing different songs.” Okoroji however, insisted that if they think they can easily overrun Nigerians, they were mistaken.

“But we are not going to bow. They may seem to have advantage now because they are in power and have been armed and have taken strategic positions in forests across Southern Nigeria. But wars are not as simple as that. Anybody who thinks he has an advantage is deceiving himself. If they start, it will be a nationwide conflagration.”

The Buhari government had in the past, tried to push for the creation of what it called grazing reserves for Fulani herders in various states of the country. But when the move was resisted, it came up again with another term it called Cattle Colony, basically intended to achieve the same purpose of mapping out expands of land in each state for the habitation, if not ownership of Fulani grazers.

This again, caused outrage with many wondering why the government was bent on taking people’s ancestral lands to hand over to herders doing private business. Towards the 2019 election, the push for such settlements appeared to have died down and many would have thought the government has given up the agenda.

However, when recently, the immediate past Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh disclosed that Buhari had approved Ruga settlements for Fulani herders in all the states, with 12 states selected as pilot states, to according to him, allow herdsmen to stay in specific areas, where they could graze their animals, it sent tongues wagging.

“The Federal Government is using every trick in the book to put up something for the Fulani people,” said Chief Goddy Uwazurike, president emeritus of Igbo think tank group, Aka Ikenga.

“They have used all sorts of ideas. First, wanted cattle colony and asked the states to donate lands. When the states refused, they came back with Ruga. In every government action, there is always a purpose. The purpose of this one is to take people’s lands and give them to live and rear their cattle. Unfortunately for them, land is a state matter, not federal matter. They will run into problems, definitely, because it cannot stand.”

Chief Uwazurike wondered why the herdsmen and the Federal Government have refused to take the offer of Kano and Nasarawa states to house the herders, but are instead pushing to occupy lands in the South and Middle Belt.

“Kano governor (Abdullahi Ganduje) I know has announced that all the herdsmen who have no place to go to should come to Kano. I don’t understand the point in insisting that the Fulani are accommodated in different states. If someone wants to set up a factory tomorrow and he says that the governor of Niger State should give him a land, they will not give him. They will ask him to go and buy land.

“I don’t understand why the government has been doing everything in the past four years to favour a tiny part of the population. First, they said money should be voted for them. When it blew up, they denied it and nobody knows what has happened.”

Uwazurike pointed out that it was a shame that the former Minister of Agriculture, Ogbe, whose Idoma people have been killed in their numbers that is pushing such idea. For the former Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbe, has written his own epitaph. I know that only very few people have that chance to write their own while they are alive. He has done that.

“Nasarawa state has always been ready to accommodate the Fulani who attack Benue people. If they go there, they have more than what they need. But they don’t want to go there. But what I know is that anything done in illegality will always come to failure.”

The federal government on its part argues that creating such settlements would end the incessant killings by herdsmen. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammed Umar, whose re-echoing of Ogbe’s earlier announcement on the sidelines of the West Africa Antimicrobial Resistance Workshop in Abuja on Tuesday, triggered the recent wave of reactions, had argued that the Ruga settlements would attract investors to Nigeria and put an end to the killings by herdsmen.

“The Ruga settlement is one of the very important things being done by the ministry and it is one of the best things that can happen not only to Nigeria but to most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a concept that we developed to deal with internal security,” he said.

“We felt that to do away with herders-farmers’ conflict, we need to settle our nomads and those who breed animals. We want to put them in a place that has been developed as a settlement, where we provide water for their animals, pasture, schools for their children, security, agro-rangers, etc.”

But others say his argument is mischievous. According to them, such settlements cannot stop killings as the examples of Southern Kaduna and elsewhere have shown.

“It would only escalate the problem as this is clearly an agenda for conquest and domination,” Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin noted. “If the Fulani are terror as wanderers, what would they become as landlords in other people’s land? It is clear the FG is on some provocative agenda which confirms Obasanjo’s alarm about the Fulanisation project.”

In a statement last week, President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Nnia Nwodo, had echoed similar sentiment. He accused the Buhari administration of promoting religious bigotry and nepotism.

“The Federal Government’s violation of provisions of our constitution on the administration of land in Nigeria, its total violation of valid laws made by Benue State Government in accordance with her inherent powers under our constitution and its violations of extant court judgment on grazing and ranching is a clear pointer to anarchy,” he said.

“When respect for the rule of law is jettisoned and sheer power, religious bigotry and nepotism displayed, an inevitable resort to self-help and anarchy is being courted. Our country is sliding into avoidable anarchy and doom,” he warned.

Earlier in the week, Chairman of South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) and Governor of Ebonyi State, Chief Dave Umahi, had indicated that no portion of land in any South East state would be designated for cattle colony. Also, Benue, Taraba and Ondo governments have respectively rejected the idea of Ruga settlements.

In a statement last week, the Chief Press Secretary to Samuel Ortom, Benue governor, Terver Akase regretted the action of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which he said was attempting to subvert the right of a state to make laws for the governance of their people.

“We find the approach of the ministry not only as a gross violation of the Ranching Law, but also as an insult to the sensibilities of the entire people of Benue state. The people and government of Benue State rejected cattle colonies and still reject the policy in whichever robes it is disguised.”

“Governor Samuel Ortom made the stand of Benue state known during the unveiling of the Livestock Development Programme in Abuja last year.” He stressed that the state would embrace the policy only if it supports implementation of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of 2017.”

The leadership of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), the umbrella body of Fulani herders, has, nonetheless, continued to argue the case for the said settlement, while the government has insisted on proceeding with the establishment of the settlements in eleven states, including Adamawa, Taraba, Sokoto, Kogi, Kaduna, Nasarawa Katsina, Kebbi Plateau and Zamfara.

MACBAN’s General Secretary, Baba Uthman Ngelzarma, speaking on Channels TV Sunrise Daily on Friday, insisted that when the programme is successfully completed, Nigerians would fully enjoy the benefits of animal husbandry, even as he disclosed that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s office is helping the herdsmen to create Ruga settlements across the country.

“All must agree with me that the crisis we are facing today has become a multi-dimensional one and so the approach must also be holistic. It was the desire of the Federal Government to take a holistic approach that gave birth to the Ruga settlement model and it is not only for Fulani herders,” he said.

“In southern Kaduna, there are natives who are also herders. Even in Plateau, there are other groups that are herders. It was intended for the herders as part of efforts by the government to come up with an economic model of solving this crisis.

“This is an integrated settlement that will bring about the production of pasture grass, water, schools, markets, meat and milk processing and where it can create a sub-sector of the economy. This is something that if done properly, it will create a lot of employment.”

However, Ngelzarma was quickly called out by former Senior Special Assistant to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Jonathan Asake, who was his fellow guest on the programme. Asake who is from Kaduna South and former House of Reps member, argued that Ruga is nothing more than an attempt to ‘Fulanise’ the country.

He said the term ‘Ruga’ was a Fulani word and it was thus hypocritical of anyone to say when it is implemented across the nation, it would not be exclusive to Fulani.

“I’m from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area in Kaduna State. We have what was established in 1987 as the Kachia grazing reserve in the then old Kachia LG which comprises Zangon Kataf, Chikun and Kajuru and Kachia Local Government Areas of today,” he said.

“That grazing reserve has been changed to Laduga. Laduga is actually a Fulani word and no indigene is allowed there. The land has been taken over from the indigenes. And that place is now a big town, with big hospitals and roads.

“In fact, the last voter registration exercise had two registration machines put there. Today, they have a district head and they are asking for an emirate. It is just a model of what will happen tomorrow in this country when these settlements are established. You will have state constituencies in the state assembly established all over the country strictly for Fulani.”