Thanks heavens, reason finally prevailed. And Ruga was shut down, at least for now. Written before it was doomed, this is how Ruga met its Waterloo:
It is both ravenous and ravaging. It is like end time. This time is perilous. And guess what, it is self-inflicted. We are the architects of our own undoing. Sad!
It was such an odd parting gift from an exiting minister. He refused to depart in peace. Instead, he preferred to leave us in pieces. Things have never been the same since he let the dangerous cat out of the loose bag.
We wonder aloud whom Chief Audu Ogbeh, former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development wanted to impress. His last exploit was grossly misplaced, including its awkward timing.
We were taken aback. We thought his tenure had expired for our good. What he did? Few days before he was to cease as a minister, he succinctly spoke the minds of the lords in Aso Rock. He exposed what was supposed to be kept close to their fleshy chests:
“Just 10 days ago, President Muhammadu Buhari approved a programme called the Ruga settlement. We are going to build a settlement where herders will live, grow their cattle and produce milk.
“The milk will be bought by a milking parlour thus preventing their wives from moving around with milk. This is especially to avert any conflict between the herders and the farmers.” Ogbeh volunteered this on May 21, 2019. Very instructive.
We are wiser this time around. We know their pranks and understand their game very well. They can dress it in whatever name that suits their weird fancy. It can wear any absurd coinage. The message can never be lost on us. A leopard dares not change its spots. Ruga is it!
They are so desperate in forcing it upon our croaked throats. It was once labelled grazing field, we kicked. They changed it to cattle ranching, we cried. Unrelentingly, they moved on.
They went back to their rough and ugly drawing board. They laboured day and night. They were restive and restless. They struck a convincing balance. They were so certain Ruga would work wonders.
They waited with bated breath for its pronouncement. They found a ready tool in Ogbeh. He fell into their plan, in fact, he richly bought into it. To them, it is Ruga (settlement in Fulfude/Fulani language). But to us, it remains what truly it is: Cattle colony. A modern day colonisation.
The very reason we are sticking to our guns with all our might and all the remaining strength in us. No pretence. No retreat; no surrender. We won’t feign ignorance of what we are sure of.
Ruga is cruel, evil. It is voracious and gluttonous in truth and spirit. Past experiences glaringly showed it is not meant for our good. It is devouring, threatening and dividing us the more. The gulf being created by Ruga is alarming and widening by the day. We are fast sliding to the extreme. Great pity.
Unfortunately, government is far from helping matters. It has refused to reckon with the opposing camp. It disregards the other side’s feelings and aspirations with reckless impunity. It is carrying on as if government alone holds the aces.
Hangers-on, do-gooders, boot-lickers, praise-singers are all over. They are comfortably in firm control. They pretend to forget that we are joint partners in this Project Nigeria. We are co-stakeholders, and equal share holders.
That is why we are amused and amazed that bandits and hoodlums would find a willing advocate in the Federal Government. It is disheartening how a government would constantly rise to the defence of killer herdsmen to our greatest detriment.
Without asking for one, government gladly obliged them a radio station with an AM network. And they must speak only Fulfulde. Now you are mulling Ruga, a.k.a cattle colony. Why the special treatment to these herdsmen? That is what we sadly take away from the government’s body language.
It is strange the manner in which we handle crises in this our remote clime. It is a rude shock to a sane mind. There appears to be discordant tunes from the Presidency; a seeming crack in the Rock. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo did not want to be dragged into the messy affair. Not so soon after his disastrous New York outing.
All the same, Osinbajo remains in the eye of the storm. He cannot easily escape it. He asked for it and he is getting it in good measure. He was forced out of his shell. His office was alleged to be driving the Ruga initiative.
Promptly, his spokesman, Laolu Akande, came to his defence: “The Ruga initiative is different from the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) approved by state governors under the auspices of the National Economic Council (NEC), chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
“The NLTP 2019-2028 is a programme to be implemented in seven pilot states of Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Plateau and Zamfara, being states in the frontline of the farmer-herder crises.” With that, he washed his hands off Ruga.
But Garba Shehu, Buhari’s spokesman would not. He insisted Ruga is real. And it has come to stay. For good or for bad. Daily Sun reported him this way:
“The settlement (Ruga) will be in an organised place with provision of necessary and adequate basic amenities such as schools, hospitals, road networks, vet clinics, markets and manufacturing entities that will process and add value to meats and animal products.”
Ruga is not about economy. The masterminds never intended it so. Ruga is strictly about the selfish interests of some greedy species in our midst. Ranching or cattle grazing, whether called Ruga or whatever, is nothing but a private business. Sure, cattle ranching couldn’t have been new in Nigeria. The first ranch actually debuted in the 1950s, Obudu Ranch, in present-day Cross River State. The Western Region had Oodua Farms Cattle Ranch (Western Livestocks) at Akunu-Akoko, Ondo State, among other places. The Northern Region had its own in Mokwa, in present-day Niger State.
But none of them brought blood, sorrow and pain. They rather heralded riches, wealth and prosperity. But not so anymore, times have changed. Things have turned upside down, walking on their heads instead of legs.
Jonathan Asake was a member of the House of Representatives. He confirmed our fears of Ruga during a television programme last week:
“I am from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area in Kaduna State. We have what was established in 1987, as the Kachia Grazing Reserve in the then old Kachia LG, comprising Zangon Kataf, Chikun and Kajuru and Kachia LGs of today.
“That grazing reserve has been changed to Laduga. Laduga is actually a Fulani word and no indigene is there. The land has been taken over from the indigenes. And that place is now a big town, with big hospitals and roads. Today, they have a district head and they are asking for an emirate.
“It is just a model of what will happen tomorrow in this country when these settlements are established. You will have state constituencies in the state assembly established all over the country – strictly for Fulani.”
We need a huge spanner in the works of Ruga. It must not mar or destroy us. The earlier we halt this wolfish rave of the moment, the better for us.
But why did we allow it to get to this ridiculous level? Honestly, I am still wondering.