The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ruga

  • Relief as Buhari suspends Ruga scheme

    THE Federal Government’s suspension of the cattle settlement project popularly known as Ruga yesterday drew commendation across the country.

    Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom, the pan-Igbo socio-political group Ohanaeze Ndigbo, some elder statesmen, politicians and senior lawyers hailed the action, saying it would relieve tension.

    They suggested ways out of the herders’, farmers’ challenge.

     

    Falana: replace Ruga with ranching

    Activist-lawyer Femi Falana advised the government to replace the suspended  Ruga settlement scheme with ranching.

    Falana said ranching should be funded by states and individual stakeholders with the assistance of the federal government.

    He stated this while reacting to the suspension of Ruga settlement scheme by the federal government.

    He recalled: “As far back as 2016 the Buhari administration had opted for ranching. To actualise the ranching policy 11 states had made available 55,000 hectares of land. Ranching has also been adopted by the National Livestock Policy of the Buhari administration. What is now left is for the immediate implementation of the ranching programme.”

    Falana believed that RUGA was suddenly introduced from the blues by some fifth columnists in the administration.

    He contended: “RUGA should not just be suspended but cancelled completely by the federal government. It should be replaced with ranching funded by state governments and individual stakeholders with the assistance of the federal government.

    “However if the federal government is interested in establishing ranches in the states, it should apply for building approval from the state governments because the supreme court has held that physical planning is not in the exclusive legislative list,” he added.

     

    Fasanmi hails Buhari

    The Leader of Afenifere (Egbe Ilosiwaju Yoruba), Senator Ayo Fasanmi, hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for the action.

    Fasanmi, a Second Republic senator, said with that decision Buhari has proved to the world that he is a Democrat. A good leader, he added, would listen to the people and feel their pulse on government proposals in taking a final decision.

    He said President may have good intention with the RUGA project but the issue has been politicised and misinterpreted. But the government has diffused the tension the proposed project has generated in recent time, the President, he said deserves commendation.

    Fasanmi said: “I am a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC). I believe in the party’s programmes. Buhari is my friend. But I didn’t support the creation of cattle colonies.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t support Buhari’s government. I have confidence in Buhari’s leadership.

    “We have lived together with Fulani herders here in the Southwest from time immemorial. I have Fulanis as personal friends. We have lived together in harmony. It is unfortunate some people have brought politics into the matter. That explains why I advised against the government proposal to establish cattle ranching all over the country.

    “Buhari should not allow noisemakers to distract him from the good work he’s doing. Rather, we should create an enabling environment for him to consolidate his achievements on the fight against corruption, fight against terrorism and economic restructuring.”

    Fasanmi congratulated the president for listening to the people and taking a decision that would douse the tension in the country.

     

    Adebanjo ‘welcomes development’

    Afenifere leader Chief Ayo Adebanjo praised Buhari for listening to the people by not going ahead with the proposed Ruga settlement.

    He said the President’s response was a welcome development, noting that his action indicates that he is a listening leader.

    He said: “It is a sign that he is beginning to be a listening President. If he had gone ahead with the plan without paying attention to what the people wanted, the consequence could have only be imagined.

    “All we want is the truth, we don’t want any quarrel and the truth is that nobody hates Buhari. But I disagree with the way he is doing politics. Where he does the right thing I will praise him and he has done that in this case.

    “All I am saying is that he has not shown the zeal in the question of restructuring the country. He promised us in 2007 on restructuring, Afenifere supported him. He said he was going to use Bakare them. He promised Tinubu which was in their manifesto.

    “After that, he set up the el-Rufai committee but nothing came out of all these promises. What type of executive is that? Every allegation I make against him is back up with facts. I have no cause to hate him and if you will recollect before the 2015 election, I said it that if Buhari supported restructuring he become my candidate.

    “That is the only thing that can bring peace in this country, anything contrary to that you are playing with fire. It is what should be done now not later.”

     

    Ohanaeze commends govt

    In a statement, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to Ohanaeze President General, Chief Emeka Attamah, the organisation said: “It is heart-warming to observe that for the first time the current leadership at the Federal level has deferred to people’s opinion on public issues

    “Issues surrounding the suspended Ruga scheme indicate the importance of consulting the people before taking certain decisions that will affect them.

    “Ohanaeze Ndigbo is as worried about the restoration of peace between farmers and herders in the country as the Federal Government and believes that the ultimate solution to it is to embrace ranching.

    “The Federal Government should take immediate measures to disarm the Ak-47 trotting herders throughout the country.

    “Government should carry out an audit of foreigners in the country and ascertain those with genuine entry papers, deport those illegally in the country as well as ensure that the nation’s borders are properly controlled and manned to avert further massive infiltration

    “As a process towards healing the present wounds and uniting the country, adequate compensation should be paid to relations of victims of the unwarranted killings in the country in recent times.”

    Before the suspension of the idea, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo rejected the scheme. The apex Igbo organisation urged the Southeast governors to stick to their earlier rejection of the scheme.

    It further warned traditional rulers, town union presidents, communities and individuals in the South East to be wary of lures, overtures and mouth-watering offers intended to induce them part with their land in the guise of industrial ventures.

    In a statement yesterday by the president general of the organisation, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, the organisation states: “The attempt by the Federal Government to foist RUGA settlements on the country has met stiff resistance from some states.

    “Consequently, the protagonists of the scheme are now said to be trying to use clandestine moves to surreptitiously bring it into dissenting states through the back door.”

     

    Ortom: victory for Nigeria

    Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom described the suspension as a victory for all peace-loving Nigerians.

    The governor through his Chief Press Secretary Terver Akase, added that the rejection of the Ruga settlement model was not personal but rather a struggle by the people of the country against impunity and injustice.

    Ortom commended Buhari for heeding the call of the people for the suspension of the Ruga settlement patterns. He says the decision to suspend the Ruga programme shows that Buhari has heard the voices of the majority of Nigerians on the matter.

    He stated that truth has prevailed on the Ruga issue, citing the Bible book of John 8: 32 which says “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

    Ortom urged the Federal Government to take a step further to encourage pastoralists and other livestock owners to embrace ranching as the best model of animal husbandry.

     

    ‘It’s commendable’

    Former Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Zone II Bala Hassan (retd) said the suspension was commendable because RUGA would have heightened security challenges if implemented now.

    “If there’s an outcry for a programme meant for the people, it can be revisited so that adjustments are made. The policy was for the general wellbeing of Nigerians and so, if Nigerians who are intended beneficiaries have reservations on it, it is best to suspend it, make more consultations for people to understand how good it is. Maybe, after that is done, people can accept it. There is a need for cost-benefit analysis. People want to do things that will give them less pain and more gain. If this will give maximum pleasure to Nigerians, they will embrace it,” he said.

     

    SANs: a step in  right direction

    Former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) and Council of Legal Education (CLE) Chairman Chief Emeka Ngige (SAN) hailed the government for listening to the people.

    They said it was a welcome development in view of public reaction to the plan.

    Agbakoba told our correspondent: “I commend the President for listening and accepting that the Ruga policy should be suspended.

    “I am hopeful that on further consideration, the President will cancel it altogether.”

    For Ngige, the suspension shows that the President is not insensitive to Nigerians’ concerns.

    “I think its a step in the right direction. It is a commendable step by the government. It shows that our President is a listening President who has high regard for public opinion.

    “He’s not impervious to public outcry. The suspension will pave the way for consultations and a holistic review of the policy by the government.

    “It will also give the government the opportunity to consider alternatives to the Ruga policy.

    “I commend the government for being bold enough to put the proposal on hold pending holistic review of the policy. This is democracy in action,” Ngige said.

     

    Foundation goes to court

    The Malcolm Omirhobo Foundation yesterday went to court over Ruga.

    In the suit instituted at the Federal High Court, Abuja, the board of the Incorporated Trustees of Malcolm Omirhobo Foundation is asking that the scheme is voided.

    The plaintiff prayed the court to restrain the government, the President, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to restrain from such plans.

    Also, the foundation sought an order of the court stopping the Federal Government, AGF, and the minister of agriculture from using the Benue, Ekiti and Taraba land mass which their governors hold in trust for their people.

    The foundation also urged the court to restrain the governors of Benue, Ekiti, Taraba and Niger states and their counterparts in other states as Trustees of the land of their people.

    In addition, the plaintiff also sought a court order restraining the National Assembly (NASS), from appropriating funds to finance the establishment and implementation of the scheme.

    It also sought another order stopping the Benue government from disbursing public funds to finance the development, establishment and implementation of the scheme.

    “The foundation also wants the court to stop the FG and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture from funding the scheme.

    “The originating summons filed by Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo faulted the introduction of the Ruga settlement on the ground that the policy runs counter to the constitution.

    “Section 1 (42) 43 44 55 81 82 and 83 of the second schedule of the 1999 Constitution especially, Sections 28 29 and 51 of the Land Use Act of 1978.

    “The Defendants in the suit are Federal Government, AGF, Ministry of Agriculture, NASS, Accountant General of the Federation, Benue, Ekiti, Taraba and Niger as 1st to 10th respondents.6.”

    By the originating summons, the plaintiff wants the court to determine whether, by the provision of sections 43 and 44 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 1 of the Land Use Act of 1978, the country’s landmass belongs to various ethnic groups.

    The foundation also wants the court to determine whether by the provision of sections 43 and 44 of the constitution/ sections 28, 29 and 51 of the Land Use Act of 1978, the FG is permitted by law to acquire land from ethnic groups.

    However, no date has been fixed for hearing of the suit.

    NAN reports that President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday suspended the `Ruga Settlement’ Programme initiated by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in preference for the National Economic Council (NEC)’s National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP).

    Gov. David Umahi of Ebonyi disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after a meeting of the NEC Committee of Farmers/Herders Crisis Chaired by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    `Ruga Settlement’ is a rural settlement in which animal farmers/herders stay in a designated place provided with basic amenities such as schools, hospitals, road networks, vet clinics, markets among others.

    However, the initiative has elicited nationwide controversy.

    Umahi said that the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) would be all-inclusive, adding that it was for states that were willing to key into the programme.

    “We, the NEC Committee on Farmers/Herders Crisis under the Chairmanship of the Vice President, met today to deliberate on the approved programme of the NEC and Federal Government tagged, NLTP.

    “We are aware that the president has suspended the implementation of `Ruga’ Programme initiated and being implemented by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

    “This is because it is not consistent with the NEC and Federal Government’s approved NLTP,” he said.

  • Ranch, Ruga or Ramble!

    When Ibrahim Babangida’s Fulani-Education Minister, Jibril Aminu, in 1989 proposed compulsory ‘nomadic education’ for the children, mostly, of nomadic herdsmen, a large section of the media vehemently kicked. Not because we did not think that it was a good idea–i.e. to ingest, in good enough time, the anti-venom necessary to counteract the potential danger of nomadic pastoralism in the foreseeable future when the herdsman’s anachronistic way of life predictably would come in the way of agrarian and communal living. Nor was the media’s opposition to Jubril Aminu’s programme informed by the fact that the nation could ill-afford such novelty.

    In truth nomadic education was not what many people thought it was, namely a ‘sop’ to the Saberus of geo-political or ethno-religious patronage intended to benefit a particular people. No, the particular people were targeted because they were inseparably involved in the running of a vital sector with the potential to impact positively or negatively not only on the nation’s food security, but now as we are seeing, also on the whole gamut of national security. Nomadic education was the proverbial ‘stitch in the womb of time’ that we needed and which, by now, would’ve helped us ‘save nine’.

    Alas, here we are today all raggedy and patched-up because we are clad in a jaded, manifoldly-torn garment of inter-ethnic crisis occasioned by our refusal to ‘stitch in time’. Had the potential nuisance of nomadic herding been timeously preempted with educating the nomadic child, by now at least a first generation army of nomadic-shy, easily ranch-embracing, sedentary successor-herders would’ve come of age to rest the drudgery of pastoral herding by accepting a sedentary life of herding through modern ranching; and especially with its trebled potentials for improving quality and quantity of meat and milk production. But no! We allowed to get the better of us, our usual trade-mark penchant for shooting down virtually every noble intention of government on the altar of self-harming ethno-religious and geo-political grudge.

    But the irony of it is that this same ranch-like option of Ruga, with its economic value chain and potentials for ending the farmers-herders crisis, was once the sing-song narrative of the same anti-pastoralists who –for reasons again, more political than pragmatic- are now vehemently in opposition to it. At the time media preachment on the virtue of ranching once took the centre-stage of our public discuss, Fulani herdsmen themselves, and particularly the Buhari government then, were the anti-sedentarists that had to be fought to accept ranching.

    Anti-open-grazing and pro-ranching voices were especially all over the social media haranguing the government to do the needful –namely rein in on herders to accept the option of a government-funded ranching system. And if memory serves right, two usually less than sincere state governments in this farmer-herder crisis, namely Benue and Taraba, soon rushed to their various state assemblies to legislate to outlaw open grazing even as they claimed to adopt, pretentiously now it seems, the ranching option as the minimum acceptable to them. But nothing exposes the hypocrisy especially of Benue’s Ortom more than the fact that although his was the first state that made a public show of legislating to adopt ranching, he was also the earliest to announce that Benue had no land to spare the Fulanis for ranching; and now also the stiffest in opposition to the idea of ruga-ranching.

    Benue again would be the first and only state to announce a poorly-scripted contractual sign-post which it alleged the federal government had mounted in some desolate bush as proof that contracts had already been awarded to execute the Ruga project without consulting governors. Ortom has proved himself an adept dissembler, stage-crafting the enactment of a law in order to take out from Benue a people he loved so much to hate.

    And although it is now clear the Ruga option is optional and not an imposition, as has been mischievously alleged, yet the interventionist obligation of government in such a critical sector as cattle-raising is now becoming the new Aunt Sally or the whipping boy of this army of anti-Fulani herdsmen, simply because it is privately run. And the question arises ‘why cannot government, for the exigency of ending the farmers-herders crisis, not invest its time, energy and resources do so, when, even without as much demand of exigency, successive governments are known to intervene in several other privately-run businesses before now? Even in the United States, the bastion of democratic capitalism, government occasionally subvents and whenever necessary, subsidizes agriculture.

    To keep its already-wealthy five percent farming population gainfully in business, government spends billions regularly to suck up and store-away glut in both strategic and emergency reserves all over the United States. That way, not only are prizes of farm produce kept stable so that farmers meet their expected profits and are able to reinvest, but food security is also guaranteed for all its citizens. If there is a price to pay for peace and security in our land, and the government can afford it, why should it not pay to get it? Why should the ‘do-nothing’ prescriptions of the few among us who have a penchant for politicizing every noble intention of government be the yardstick by which to measure the legitimacy of solutions to the myriad of problems affecting Nigeria?

    Let’s face it, our local herdsmen, with small holdings in cattle rearing, do not have the wherewithal to afford such capital-intensive venture like ranching. Whenever Audu Ogbeh spoke about those little issues germane to ranching –like the need for species of high-lactating cattle and varieties of fast-growing grass- we had trivialized it with the usual ethno-religious bigotry by which we are wont always to attend to serious issues in this country. Ogbeh, himself an Idoma from Benue, had been the butt of ridicule each time he spoke about some of the condition-precedent necessary for the transformation of the Fulani herdsmen from a nomadic to a sedentary form of living. We claim to desire an urgent end to the perennial circle of farmers-herdsmen crisis, but it does appear that now that the government is getting the hang of it, the mischief makers in our midst are not happy to let go off a vital angler.

    Already to the nomadic herdsman –as well as to his particular species of cattle- even this proposed government-funded Ruga-ranching system will initially come at a great cost to his accustomed way of life –especially with all the attendant psychological, physical and social consequences. Nothing can be more uncertain than that, by the instantaneity of legislation, government brings to a sudden halt the nomadic way of living of a people and impose on them a sedentary one, in a technologically-driven ranch, with all the uncertainty of growing enough pasture and providing water for their cattle.

    Conversely nothing can be more hate-mongering than to insist that this same herdsmen must, themselves, pay to be put to this uncertain future; that they must cough out capital several hundreds of times the value of their small-time cattle-holding to buy into this bleakly uncertain future, or that they and their cattle may bloody well stay high, dry and die! But it does not work that way –no matter how much we hate the Fulanis.

    Yes, we may impose it on him and not care what happens to him thereafter. But can we ignore what he does thereafter to get by? We did not give a hoot that ‘nomadic education’ succeeded or not; but do we not now have to deal with the errantry of the illiterate Fulani herdsman? And in the last 10 or 15 years when, especially us the media, looked the other way when the cattle of the Fulani herdsmen were repeatedly rustled, do we not now have to deal with kidnapping as the newfound way of living by the deviant ones among them who lost their cattle to rustling?

    Well, since we’ll do neither ranch nor Ruga by God let’s continue to do what we do best, -ramble!