The groundswell of stiff opposition mounted against the Federal Government’s Ruga settlement programme for herdsmen across the country was clear enough signal that the policy was unpopular, ab initio, and should, therefore, not have been touched with a six-foot pole, in the first place.
The government later realised that the public outrage by Nigerians over the vexing issue couldn’t be discountenanced and subsequently suspended it, especially when no fewer than four out of the country’s six geo-political zones had vehemently voiced their rejection of the plan. But what Nigerians from the various geo-political zones of the country want is the outright cancellation of the controversial Ruga programme.
It is gratifying to note that, in line with the mood of most parts of the country, the umbrella body of the Fulani herders, who would have been the major beneficiaries of Ruga, accepted FG’s suspension of its implementation. MACBAN National President, Abdullahi Bodejo, said they backed FG’s suspension of the scheme because neither the group nor their traditional rulers were consulted on the issue. He described the Ruga issue as political. Bodejo said that the only policy of government that would help the Fulani’s cause in Nigeria is the provision of facilities in grazing reserves.
But Thursday’s obstinate issuance of 30-day ultimatum by a coalition of northern groups to the FG and governors opposed to the Ruga scheme to reverse their decisions is shocking and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. For members of a so called coalition of northern groups to suddenly begin to stoke the fire of a smouldering issue and beating the drums of war, equally leaves so much to be desired. The arrogant and condescending manner with which the group’s spokesman and other members handed down a 30-day ultimatum and threats to the FG and state governors over Ruga’s suspension is enough grounds for the police to have acted immediately to avoid a situation where some ethnic jingoists, by their unguarded utterances, would cause an avoidable break down of law and order in the country. The law can still take its course against the leaders of the coalition of northern groups for threatening the FG and other Nigerians.
However, the Federal Government should take all the blame for the current brouhaha over the Ruga scheme, particularly for dabbling in a matter that is private to those in the business of cattle rearing, even in the face of more pressing national issues.
Unabashedly, the Federal Government had initially stoutly defended this unpopular policy, not minding the implication of its stance for national security, unity and cohesion. Surprisingly, it had even announced its readiness to commence the implementation of the controversial Ruga settlement project in about twelve states, including volatile Kaduna, Plateau and Taraba states as well as Adamawa, inspite of the strident public outcries against the proposal by Nigerians in the Middle Belt, the South South, the South East and the South West.
Although the Federal Government believed the establishment of the Ruga settlements for Fulani herdsmen would address the problems arising from open grazing, Nigerians from across the country were never and are still not convinced about the propriety of its earlier action.
The Presidency’s statement aimed at persuading the public failed to have the desired effect. Rather, it further fueled the outrage against government’s decision.
Although farmers/herders’ conflicts predate the President Buhari-led administration, it is widely believed that the violence and killings allegedly perpetrated by suspected Fulani herdsmen became widespread and even took a more dangerous dimension under the current government because the President has chosen to treat his erring kinsmen with kid’s gloves by allegedly refusing to excoriate them or even rein them in to check their excesses.
It is worrisome that the Federal Government in the first place unilaterally decided to embark on such a controversial project capable of causing disaffection among Nigerians without carrying along the other stakeholders in the Nigerian project. It is very clear that the National Assembly was not even consulted on the matter before the Buhari-led Executive embarked on its implementation.
This is a government that has always prided itself on its avowed respect for the observance of the Rule of Law in all it does, but, surprisingly, not on such a volatile issue as the establishment of Ruga settlements for herdsmen across the country, because it involves a favoured ethnic group in Nigeria, whose kinsman is currently holding the reins of governance in the country.
Under the Land Use Act Decree, it’s only the state governors that have the powers to allocate lands. Now that the plan to implement Ruga has been dropped, the processes that culminated in the gazetting of 31,000 hectares of land for the Ruga settlement projects in each of the states of the federation by a Federal Government not vested with the control of lands, should be probed. Apart from constitutional provisions, there are enough Supreme Court pronouncements that the President and the Federal Government do not have the powers to commandeer or seize lands from states. With the Ruga matter, the Presidency had only succeeded in packaging what was inconsistent with the Nigerian constitution. Cattle rearing is private business and there is no reason for any law legalising Ruga.
In its failed attempt to establish these Fulani colonies in the different parts of the country, the Federal Government has by sheer fiat expropriated lands belonging to other ethnic nationalities in each of the 36 states of the Federation, just for the sake of a favoured stock of Fulani herdsmen.
The government did not stop at that. The Presidency, which confirmed that the Federal Government had gazetted lands in all the 36 states of the federation for the Ruga settlement, in one breath, said in another that the various states had the option to either participate in the programme or spurn it. Such a double-talk was no doubt capable of upping the mutual distrust and suspicion existing among the different sections of the country and in this particular case, against the Fulani stock.
Already, suspected Fulani herdsmen have been fingered as the culprits behind the rising wave of insecurity and the worrisome high incidence of kidnappings across the country, in recent times. Therefore, planting Fulani colonies in states across the country in strange lands, where the herdsmen, as non-indigenes, would, after a while, naturally want to lord it over the real owners of the land, would have been an invitation to chaos. Given the age-long violent clashes that have characterised the relationship between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in communities across the country, the bad blood that the planned establishment of the Ruga settlements would have generated between the indigenous land owners and the settler Fulani herdsmen would have been unimaginable.
The unconstitutional precedent by the Federal Government that the Ruga conundrum has turned out to be, is to say the least, dangerous. It’s an issue that can cause Nigeria to implode, if utmost restraint is not exercised by all. Any attempt to force Ruga settlements on the states that rejected it would have resulted in an implosion.
It is needless to say that it was this injustice the Federal Government had attempted to visit on hapless Nigerians by its action that provoked the current hoopla and rage over the attempt to establish Ruga settlements for Fulani herders.
Rather than embroiling itself in such a needless controversy over Ruga, the President Buhari-led administration should focus more on finding lasting solutions to the worsening insecurity currently pervading the country.
Dwelling on issues like Ruga settlement project for a favoured ethnic group, when nations across the world are advancing technologically by the minute, is a serious drag to the development of Nigeria. Treating the Fulani as extraordinary citizens of Nigeria portends grave threat to the continued corporate existence of the country.
We shudder to say that the greatest security threat to the Nigerian state now is the Presidency itself, by its impolitic stance on certain issues, including the Ruga conundrum and display of sheer complacence on matters between the Fulani and other ethnic nationalities in
the country.
