RUGA Settlements’ Controversy Pushing Divisions In The Country To Near TheNigerialawyer

FROM cattle colonies to RUGA settlements in every state of the
federation: From what we know of the cattle colony scheme, based on
a presentation by the then Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbe, the
cattle colony scheme is not a scheme for the settlement of Fulani
herdsmen.

Here is what he said in his presentation: “We are talking of
colonies because 20, 30, or 40 ranchers can share the same colony.
A ranch is usually owned by an individual or a company with
sometimes very few cattle. Some have more than 200 or 300 cows. In
a cattle colony, you could find 30,000 cows owned by different
owners.

“The reason we are designing the colony is that we want to
prepare on a large scale, on the economy of scale, a place where
many owners of cattle can coexist, be fed well because we can make
their feeds. They can get good water to drink. Cows drink a lot of
water. We can give them green fodder.”

The minister talks only of cattle owners or ranchers, but not at
all of the herders. He goes on to say: “We will tell the herdsmen,
if you are passing through a state, you can only go to the colony
and stay there, feed your cattle and, when you are moving off,
agro-rangers will follow you and make sure you don’t destroy
anybody’s farm.” This statement seems to suggest that a cattle
colony under the scheme is conceived only as a ranch, which would
be combined with the existing practice of herdsmen roaming over the
whole country with their cattle, but stopping at a colony (ranch)
to feed them.

The Federal Government was obviously quibbling on the issue; its
ambivalence suggests that it was not unaware that a “colony” has,
in public perception, a meaning that is inseparable from
“settlement’ of a multitude of people, a meaning stamped on it by
history, from antiquity to modern times. A colony of cattle owners
or ranchers does not make much sense; nevertheless, the minister’s
statement, as the authoritative pronouncement of the Federal
Government’s design, means that a colony of herdsmen is not within
the cattle colony scheme, although it may metamorphose into one
over time.

There is another significant respect in which the cattle colony
scheme differs from Ruga Settlement, i.e. as respects the approach
to the acquisition and use of land for the purpose. The then
Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, in his presentation
referred to above, laid specific emphasis on this. As he stated:
“The idea is not to go and take anybody’s land. We are not.
Somebody who was very angry at this policy said to me in a text,
that the word colony means that we are trying to use Fulanis to
colonise their state and that it reminds them of colonialism.

“Well, we don’t really want to take anybody’s land to give
anybody. It’s just a biological term and we’re not after taking
land from anybody to give anybody… If you want to land, apply to
the governor. He doesn’t seize the land. He goes and calls leaders
and say, we want to do this here. It will create jobs, you can
participate, and they gather and say yes, this area. Governors
consult and the traditional rulers consult their people and they
consult their educated children.

“We won’t come to a state, take land and give Fulanis or Hausas
or Itsekiri or Idoma or Tiv and say this area has been seized and
given to an ethnic group. That’s not the idea. We wouldn’t do that
here. There is no need to take anybody’s land and forcefully use
it.”

The caution, restraint and maturity exhibited in the minister’s
approach to the sensitive issue of the acquisition and use of land
is in sharp contrast to the arrogant peremptoriness of the
announcement by the senior special assistant to the president on
media and publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, that “land for the Ruga
settlement had been gazetted in all the states of the Federation,”
in disdainful disregard of the stipulations of the Land Use Act,
and without the courtesy of consultations with the state governors
and the traditional authorities.

From the exposed above, a cattle colony, as conceived by the
Federal Government to mean, not a settlement for Fulani herdsmen
but simply as a Federal Government-sponsored scheme for the
ranching of cattle, differs significantly from a Ruga settlement.
Both have one thing in common, viz the ranching of cattle as a
project sponsored and facilitated by the Federal Government. But
aside from ranching of cattle, Ruga is marked apart from cattle
colony by the all-important attribute of providing a place for the
settlement of people, categorised by reference to ethnicity and
occupation, namely Fulani herdsmen.

That is the distinctive element that marks Ruga apart from
cattle colony. Whilst there is so much quibbling about the nature
and purpose of a cattle colony, there is no such quibbling that
RUGA is meant as a place for the settlement of Fulani herdsmen and
their families – the breeders of other animals like pigs, goats,
rams, etc. might be accommodated, but a Ruga, which is a Fulani
word, is meant primarily as a place for the settlement of Fulani
herdsmen. No amount of quibbling can disguise the fact that the
primary purpose of RUGA is to provide a place for the settlement of
Fulani herdsmen.

Ruga, as a place for the settlement of Fulani herdsmen and their
families, is conceived by the Federal Government as an organized,
more or less self-contained community equipped with various social
amenities and facilities to be so provided by the Federal
Government from revenue belonging in common to all the ethnic
groups comprised in Nigeria. An announcement by the senior special
assistant to the president on media and publicity, Mallam Garba
Shehu, published in the Vanguard of July 6, 2019, lists the social
amenities and facilities to be provided as including “schools,
hospitals, road networks, vet clinics, markets and manufacturing
entities that will process and add value to meats and animal
products,” milking parlours, abattoirs, leather processing
facilities, etc. The announcement stated that the Ruga settlements
are to be established “across the 36 states of the Federation,” and
that “the Federal Government has gazetted lands in all the 36
states of the Federation for the Ruga settlement.” The gazetting of
such lands was done without consulting the governors or other
relevant authorities of the State.

Not only did the Federal Government go-ahead to gazette lands in
all the 36 States of the Federation, it had also commenced
construction work in some of the States, notably in Ukum, Otukpo
and Tarka Local Government Areas of Benue State, which sparked
protests across the State by youths and other interested groups
condemning the construction work as an attempt by the FG to take
away their land.

The Benue State Government was then prompted by the protests to
issue the following statement which exposed the Ruga scheme as a
sinister scheme to advance the hegemonic interests of the Fulani
ethnic group in Nigeria. The statement reads: “A few weeks ago, the
Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture with his team in Benue
State informed officials of the State Ministry of Agriculture that
he had received directives from the Ministry’s headquarters Abuja
to establish Ruga which means ‘Fulani settlement’ in parts of the
State. The director stated that the local government areas selected
for the settlements were Otukpo, Tarka and Ukum but the permanent
secretary, Benue State Ministry of Agriculture drew the attention
of the director and his team to the Open Grazing Prohibition and
Ranches Establishment Law 2017 being implemented in the state.

When they were also reminded about the Land Use Act which
confers on the governor the powers to administer lands in all parts
of the State, the officials left with a promise to relay the
message to their headquarters. They surprisingly returned a few
days later with contractors to commence work on the Ruga
settlements. We find the approach of the Federal Ministry of
Agriculture 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 action of the director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture
betrays an intention and a determination by the FG to impose the
Ruga Settlement scheme on the country by an overbearing federal
might, thereby trampling on the wishes of the State Governments in
disdainful defiance of a national law bearing on the matter, the
Land Use Act entrenched in the Constitution by section 315 thereof.
The said action also casts doubt on the FG’s claim that “no state
government would be forced to provide lands for the scheme.”

To make the establishment of Ruga Settlements throughout the
country appear not to be an imposition by force of the federal
might, the State Governments were tricked into appearing to have
endorsed it. The President had gotten the National Economic
Council, NEC, of which all the state governors are members, with
the vice-president as chairman, to formulate and develop a National
Livestock Transformation Plan which, as he said, provided a basis
and a cover for the Ruga Settlement scheme. Having participated in
the meeting of NEC that approved the National Livestock
Transformation Plan, the state governors were presumed to have
endorsed the Rugs Settlement Scheme, but the presumed endorsement
was promptly denied by many State Governors, who also disclaimed
any connection between the scheme and the National Livestock
Transformation Plan.

The vice-president, when the crisis over the Ruga Settlement
Scheme broke, also denied the presumed endorsement, stating in no
uncertain words that the plan approved by NEC under the National
Livestock Transformation Plan was concerned only with the ranching
of cattle, and has nothing to do with the establishment of places
throughout the country for the settlement of Fulani herdsmen called
Ruga Settlements. The statement by the vice-president put paid to
the attempt to use the National Livestock Transformation Plan to
foist the Ruga Settlement Scheme on the country, which left
President Buhari with no alternative but to suspend the Ruga
Settlement Scheme, albeit under the false pretence that the
suspension was impelled by massive corruption in the course of the
implementation of the scheme such as the overpricing of materials
needed for the scheme.

Roaming of cattle

Whilst the suspension of the Ruga Settlement Scheme is welcomed
by the generality of Nigerians in both the Northern and Southern
parts of the country, a group in the North calling themselves by
the name the Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, has risen in
vehement opposition to the suspension, and gave President Buhari “a
30-day ultimatum to implement the Ruga policy across the country.”
The Ruga Settlement controversy has thus divided the country into
two feuding camps, both poised for violent confrontation, with the
potentiality of exploding into a shooting war, unless action is
taken to avert it.

It would be idle to deny that ranching of cattle, as an integral
part of the Ruga Settlement Scheme, has evident advantages. It is
rightly said that the ranching aspect of Ruga “would eliminate the
roaming of cattle which had been the cause of conflicts between
herders and crop farmers.” It is also rightly said that, “with
cattle and their herders restricted to specific areas, the problem
of cattle rustling would be eliminated as it would be difficult for
the rustlers to steal other herders’ cattle and take them away from
where they are settled.”

“The model would equally create opportunities to process
agricultural wastes such as rice and maize stocks and cassava
leaves into feeds for the cattle.

WHILE using the dung to generate power in addition to using it
as manure for crop farming. The era of cattle roaming around is
over across the world. Nigeria cannot be an exception. Our target
is to eliminate roaming and the attendant conflicts between herders
and crop farmers. We want to stop rustling and kidnappings by young
Fulanis who wander around in the guise of herdsmen. We want to
improve the breed of cattle through artificial insemination. This
has been done successfully in Brazil, Argentina, Tanzania,
Pakistan. Even Ghana started it last year. That is the way to
go.”

These are evident advantages which it would be idle to
deny.

Pernicious implications and consequences of Ruga settlements in
every state of the federation: The evident advantages of ranching
can be pursued without integrating it with the settlement of Fulani
herdsmen on lands belonging to other ethnic nationalities and their
constituent villages and families; these are mostly lands passed on
from generation to generation, and regarded as an inviolable
inheritance, jealously guarded against encroachment by outsiders;
any such encroachment excites the deepest sensibilities of the
indigenous owners.

The settlement of Fulani herdsmen on such lands is bound to give
rise to conflicts in the political, social, cultural and economic
relations between the Fulani settler groups and the host indigenous
communities, especially given the hegemonic tendencies of the
Fulanis or, as Yinka Odumakin puts it in an article in the Vanguard
of July 9, 2019, given the Fuani’s “expansionist agenda meant for
ethnic conquest and domination.” It is monstrous that anyone, who
means well for the country, should ever have conceived the idea of
Fulani settlements on lands owned and settled by other ethnic
nations comprised in the country. It is simply a monstrous idea
which should never have been conceived by anyone, even with the
consent of the indigenous owners of the lands in which the Fulani
herdsmen are to be settled. There should be no objection to the
establishment of Ruga Settlements in areas of the country settled
by the Fulanis as their traditional habitat, so long as this is not
funded from money belonging in common to all of us.

The way forward: A National Dialogue has been
suggested, no doubt with good intentions, by former President, Dr
Olusegun Obasanjo as the way forward, but I, for one, do not see
how a national dialogue can provide a solution to our problems. It
cannot, because President Buhari, as the person to convene the
dialogue, organize it and perhaps preside over it is himself the
problem facing the country; so he cannot be the solution. Here is a
man who contested election for the presidency of Nigeria four
consecutive times, winning on the fourth occasion.

What drove him to contest the election four consecutive times?
Was it the ordinary ambition to become President? The explanation
is provided in a speech delivered before an audience of exclusively
prominent Northern Moslem leaders on May 2, 2015, at Queen Amina
Hall, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.

He said: “I charge you to join me as we build a new Northern
Nigeria in a generation…..the best investment we can make in the
North is not finding oil in the Chad Basin….we will start with one
local government in each state until we get to every school in all
of Northern Nigeria…..To achieve this, I have secured a Northern
rehabilitation fund…..to rebuild the North after the devastation of
Boko Haram insurgency…..Join me my brothers and sisters and let us
finish the work our forefather, Ahmadu Bello, started.”

The speech portrays the picture of someone driven by something
more than the ordinary ambition to become President of Nigeria. It
requires something more than that to drive a person to contest the
presidential election for four consecutive times. Buhari was driven
by a passion, the passion of a religious zealot, a passion to
enthrone Fulani hegemony; a passion to become President of Nigeria
in order to carry on and finish the work started by his forebear,
Sir Ahmadu Bello.

According to Sheikh Gumi, in his book on Sir Ahmadu Bello, the
Sardauna’s well-known agenda of consolidating and perpetuating the
idea of Northern Nigeria as one united entity “was conceived as a
personal mission” handed down to him by his forebear, Sheikh dan
Fodio. The agenda had an accompanying ideology whose object, as
articulated by the Sardauna, was to maintain Northern Nigeria as a
theocracy ruled by a Moslem claiming to be divinely directed, with
utter disdain for democracy, and with the Sharia as the supreme
governing law; the non-Moslem minority ethnic groups in the North
are to be used as “willing tools”, and the South is to be
subjugated and reduced to “a conquered territory”, which is not to
be allowed to “have control over their future.”

The Sardauna had conceived a kind of jihad for the pursuit and
possible accomplishment of his agenda, an agenda which President
Buhari had now vowed to carry on to a “finish”, and is doing
everything possible to do so, as by the northern station,
Islamisation and fulanisation of most strategic or key positions in
the government, particularly positions in the security agencies,
the unleashing of Fulani marauding armed militia and herdsmen in
the country to terrorise, maim and kill innocent and defenceless
Nigerians, men, women and children, driving thousands from their
ancestral homes to a life of wretched existence as internally
displaced persons in IDP Camps; to the designing of schemes and
projects for the establishment of cattle colonies and now Ruga
settlements in every State of the Federation. Like the Sardauna,
President Buhari conceives the Northernisation, Islamisation and
Fulanisation Agenda as “a personal mission” that must be
accomplished whatever the costs.

It does not seem to be realistic that a president with this kind
of agenda and who have embarked on schemes and projects to
actualise the agenda should be asked to organise and preside over a
national dialogue aimed at liquidating or dismantling a
deeply-embedded, if sinister agenda. No solution to our problems
can come out of the proposed national dialogue.

The implementation of the Recommendations of the 2014 National
Conference, as suggested by former President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan,
provides a better prospect of a solution. The 2014 National
Conference was organised and took place more than one year before
President Buhari came into power with his northern station,
Islamisation and Fulanisation Agenda, and in circumstances
completely different from those existing today. Needless to say,
the implementation of the Recommendations should be subject to such
modifications and changes as may be necessary or desirable.