A member of the middle-belt forum, Mr. Jonathan Akase says that the proposed Ruga Settlement is an attempt geared at fulanizing Nigeria.
While speaking on the subject matter as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Mr. Akase said the middle-belt has rejected the scheme in totality, arguing that the programme is not necessarily the solution to the herders-farmers crisis.
He said, “The truth is that this programme was announced the first time and was widely reported when the permanent secretary Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development made an announcement to the effect that the Federal Government was proposing to establish RUGA settlement all over the country, starting with 12 pilot states the way he put it. And he went on to say that it is an initiative of the National Economic Council.
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“That announcement will make one cast back on the desperation of the government of the day taking one ethnic group and pursuing programmes to benefit and favour a particular ethnic group, the Fulanis”.
Mr. Akase said that previous attempts by the government to set into motions various plans that will favour the Fulani have in the past met with steep opposition.
He argued that the real people who need to be settled and catered for are “those unfortunate children of God in the Northeast that actually have been displaced from then ancestral lands”.
