Magnus Eze, Enugu
The Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) has appealed to governors and Houses of Assembly in the South East, to urgently investigate unconfirmed information that Ruga and other alien settlements already exist in Igbo land.
It advised that if confirmed, all necessary steps should be taken to abolish such strange settlements.
Insisting that no Ruga establishment and cattle colony should be allowed in any part of Igboland, ADF urged Ndigbo to reject the “so-called National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) and National Grazing Reserve Establishment and Development Commission.”
In a letter to the South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF) titled: “The security challenges of Alaigbo: Call for realistic measures to address them,” ADF identified the security of their lives, ancestral land and civilisation as a people, as the greatest challenge facing Igbo.
Noting that security was a joint-responsibility of government and the people, the group urged the governors to fully involve the people as far as security, peace and development of the region is concerned.
The letter dated September 17 and signed by ADF President, Prof. Nwala, National Secretary, Prof. Nath Aniekwu and Chairman of Publicity Bureau, Chief Abia Onyike decried the involvement of the Department of State Services personnel in setting up vigilance groups in the South East.
While calling on government not to be involved in the selection of the vigilance groups to avoid partisan influence, ADF also stated the town/village vigilantes in the various communities must be the foundation in which the protection of the communities was organised.
“We are aware that some governments in Alaigbo had in the past, for selfish political reasons, discarded the community vigilantes and set up their own structures that merely promote the political interests of the governments and not that of the people. In many of such communities, the course of security, peace and development have been compromised and abandoned as a result of the unnecessary political party interferences in the genuine security structures established by the people.