Vincent Kalu
National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, and the Spokesman of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin have accused the Miyetti Allah Kautel Hore socio-cultural organisation of fomenting trouble with its latest demand for Ruga settlements in the 36 states of the country.
In an interview with Saturday Sun, the National President of the cattle breeders, Abdullahi Bodejo, emphasised that in order to have enduring peace, every state of the federation should carve out a portion of land for the Fulani to settle, because it is the largest ethnic group in Nigeria.
According to Achi-Okpaga, “law guides everything you do on earth, and you don’t just say everybody has the freedom to do whatever business he wants and by whatever means he wants to drive the business. You cannot come out to say you have a grazing route, you enter people’s farm and call it, ‘grazing route’. Grazing route at where? It is unlawful; trespass.
“They can’t be in their own area and make a law guiding them to live peacefully and then come to the Southeast to make the place ungovernable for the indigenous people. It is unfair, and it shows a people who are unpatriotic. They allow their people to come here to kill our people, destroy their farms and villages. But they tell us that foreigners were doing that.
“So, you are bringing foreigners to come and kill us and take our farms. They claim that the people killing us are not Nigerians, but foreigners and you want us to give our land to foreigners and to allow them to do their business anyhow to our own detriment? It’s unfair, they are being economical with the truth, and their action tends to divide Nigeria; nobody is safe anywhere. They want us to leave our people to be killed. Government is not taking its responsibility, if it were, it would have fashioned out ways to save our people, who are now helpless.
“An Igbo man cannot go to Kano or any other state in the North and erect a shop without being allocated a land. They go there, they are allocated land and they pay before erecting their buildings or markets; they don’t just enter into the people’s land in the North and begin to erect structures. Why wouldn’t those who want to do their private business seek allocation of land and do their business. They just come from the North, enter our bush and take it over as if it is their land. Where is it obtainable in the world?
“The Fulani are not larger than the Igbo in Nigeria; they are not larger than the indigenous Hausa people, they are not larger than the Yoruba nation, why is it that they cannot allow people to have rest in their land, why must they coarse people to take their land. There is no land in the Southeast for Ruga or whatever you call it. It cannot happen in the Southeast. They are just courting trouble.”
In the same vein, Odumakin said there is enough land in Sambisa forest, as well as the Northwest, and urged Miyetti Allah to go and establish their Ruga there.
“In our region, communities, they should perish any idea of any Ruga. Like we have said before, they have to conquer us militarily before they can set any Ruga in our land. What they are saying is an agenda in conquest and land grabbing.
“Can those who are into motor parts business insist that they want land all over the North, why must the cattle rearers insist on having a place carved out for them in all the states all over the country? Is it a case of the dog wagging its tail or the tail wagging the dog? They are taking it too far.
“Even though they are looking for trouble at all cost, they should forget the idea of Ruga in our communities. For him to say that the business of the Fulani is in the bush and every bush belongs to Nigeria and every Nigerian has the right to do business in any bush smack of insensitivity; he failed to understand that every territory in Nigeria is indigenous.”