Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) has restated its opposition to the establishment of National Livestock (cattle) Transformation Plan a.k.a RUGA and the proposed Waterways Bill by the federal government, describing them all as land conquest agenda by the government as “the entire plan is about cattle and herdsmen.”
SMBLF expressed this strong opposition on Thursday in a statement titled: We reject NLTP (RUGA) and Waterways Bill still,” and signed by Mr Yinka Odumakin for the South-West, Prof. Chigozie Ogbu (South-East),
Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-South) and Dr Isuwa Dogo (Middle-Belt).
The group, who met in Abuja on Wednesday, expressing worries about the state of “general insecurity consuming human lives on daily basis,” said it was unfortunate that the federal government had busied itself with unpopular policies that “are divisive and smack of domination and conquest of sections of the country by a section.”
According to SMBLF, its rejection of RUGA policy is, among others, based on the use of the collective resources of Nigerians to convert herdsmen, majority of whom are non-Nigerians, from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles while doing their private business that has nothing to do with the rest of the citizens “beyond being their market,” declaring that such was akin to government making budgetary allocations to a soft drink factory “to produce drinks to sell to Nigerians.”
“Apart from the plan not making any economic sense for the country, there are other fundamental problems it raises,” the group said, recalling the recent statement made by the Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, that Fulanis from all over Africa were going to benefit from the RUGA scheme as they were, according to him, were global or African persons and by extension Nigerians.
“So why are we closing our border with Benin Republic where there are many people of Yoruba origin there? Are Igbos who are aborigines in Haiti to come to Nigeria without consular services? What is the contribution of those Fulani imports to the development of Nigeria to come and live on our resources when our citizens are the poorest on earth? Why is it difficult to apply common sense in our inter-ethnic relations in Nigeria? SMBLF queried.
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The group contended that the mindset and ploy by those in authority showed clearly that “NLTP will only escalate the clashes between the indigenous communities and cattle settlers as experiences in Southern and Middle Belt areas of Nigeria have shown that the Fulani imports do not assimilate into the ways of lives of Nigerians in those parts of the country where they reside. They live apart from the locals and set up communities with an alien culture that disrupts the cultural flow of the indigenes.
“The subterfuge of the whole deal is exposed in that while government officials deceive Nigerians that the plan will stop open grazing for ranching, option 1 in it provides for the establishment of corridors for migrant cattle with feeding and watering points along the routes. This is as stark as the lie that “livestock” includes other sources of meat. The entire plan is about cattle and herdsmen.
“We, therefore, do not accept deception and are more persuaded to accept the declaration by SSA Media to the President, Mallam Garba Shehu, who dismissed the distinction between NLTP and RUGA by VP Yemi Osinbajo as a mere semantic game.
“We do not accept the policy and we ask the Federal Government to allow those who are in cattle business establish ranches on their own under the guidelines and laws of the host state,” SMBLF said.
On Water Bill, the group, while also kicking against it, described it as another land-grabbing move like RUGA by those it called ethnic supremacists who were working against the unity of the country.
It argued that should the bill passed into law, major rivers in the country can be made available to Fulani pastoralists and there was nothing the indigenous people within such vicinities can do about it, adding that the police and the security agencies would be handy to enforce it.
“It will be another White farmer versus the African landowner’s scenario in Southern Africa during the Apartheid season.
“It is a recipe for unending armed conflicts. It also means the Federal Government can, wherever it identifies a large body of underground water (aquifers), decide to open a ‘Federal’ water scheme, and no one can stop Fulani cattle owners from taking over such places.
“The ‘all people’ in the bill also means that pastoralists from any part of Africa, as explained by Bauchi governor, can come and settle along the lush waterways of the Middle- Belt and Southern protected by Nigeria’s Federal law to the detriment of indigenes who have for centuries depended on their natural resources for their livelihood,” the group said.
It, therefore, called on all lawmakers from the South and Middle-Belt to resist bill on the floor of the National Assembly “as we shall be keenly interested in developments around it.”
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