Don’t Worsen Security Situation With Revised RUGA – Nsukka Elders Warns Gov Mbah

The Nsukka Zone Elders Forum (NEF) has advised Enugu State governor, Peter Mbah, not to take any actions that could make the security situation in the state worse, as tension continues to brew over purported plans by the Enugu State Government to establish ranches in some areas of the state.

Naija News reports that the move by the state government is part of its  effort to reduce clashes between Fulani herders and the residents of the state.

In a statement on Friday, the group denounced what it called a revised attempt to reinstate the previously suspended Rural Grazing Areas (RUGA) scheme of the former administration of Muhammadu Buhari and urged the state government to find innovative solutions to the state’s security issues as opposed to the current effort, which they claimed aims to deprive the populace while appeasing the migrant herders.

The NEF accused the state government of being insensitive to previous attacks and killings of citizens of the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen and claimed that the government’s selective pacifist approach to investigating the killing of indigenes of the state by herdsmen shows a lack of competence.

“The only interpretation any right-thinking citizen of Enugu State will give to the ongoing disgraceful development is that the Enugu State Government is determined, for whatever reason, to take community land and gift the same to the same people who have been accused of masterminding the brutal killings of the people as compensation for the several years of visiting bloodletting and instilling fear on these communities,” the group said.

The group contended that only a feeble government or one insensitive to the sensibilities of the populace could think of coming up with the strategy as a means to settling the brewing conflict, warning that the government’s policy would encourage the aggressor against their victims.

“Having reviewed the developments, especially the government’s show of contempt for the sensibilities of the people and the prevailing security situation about the aborigines-herders relationship over the years, we are left with no choice but to conclude that the Enugu State Government is determined to worsen the security situations in the parts of the state so selectively chosen for these obnoxious programmes.

“If the Enugu State Government believes that the only solution to stemming the farmer-herder clashes is to take the land belonging to the people and donate same to those responsible for the clashes, the interpretations possible are that government is too weak to protect the people or that they are aligning with the oppressors to visit even more harm on the innocent,” NEF said in the statement.

Recall that news surfaced earlier this year about the state government’s intentions to build cattle ranches for Fulani herdsmen in some areas of the Uzo-Uwani and Isi Uzo Local Government Areas, which raised tensions in the region.

However, While debunking the rumors, State Commissioner for Information Eze Aka acknowledged that the state government intends to build ranches in various areas of the state to control the ongoing conflicts between local residents and Fulani herders who are migrants.