The Southern/ Middle- Belt leaders have reaffirmed their opposition to the National Livestock (cattle) Transformation Plan a.k.a RUGA, while equally rejecting Federal Government proposed Bill which seeks to establish a regulatory framework for the water resources sector in Nigeria.
In a statement to the media, Thursday, after the group meeting in Abuja, signed by Yinka Odumakin Southwest, Chigozie Ogbu Southeast, Isuwa Dogo Middle-belt and Bassey Henshaw South-south, the leaders expressed worry that instead of mobilising national consensus to confront the monumental tragedies confronting the country, the Federal Government was rather engaging itself with policies that are divisive and smack of domination and conquest of other sections of the country.
The group berated the Federal Government for giving special treatment to Fulani herdsmen, while wondering what economic contribution the herdsmen had made to the development of the country.
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According to the group, “Instead of mobilising national consensus to confront the monumental tragedies confronting the country, the Federal Government has busied itself with policies that are divisive and smack of domination and conquest.
“The use of the collective resources of Nigerians to convert herdsmen, majority of who are nonNigerians from nomadic to sedentary lifestyles while doing their private business that has nothing to do with the rest of us beyond being their market.
“It is akin to government making budgetary allocations to Coca Cola to produce drinks to sell to Nigerians. Apart from the plan not making any economic sense for the country there are other fundamental problems it raises.”
The group, however, described the Bill for an Act to establish a regulatory framework for the water resources sector in Nigeria as another attempt at forcefully taking over lands which belongs to other sections of the country by the Federal Government for the benefit of herdsmen.
The leaders, while condemning the Bill, equally warned that its passage by the National Assembly was capable of creating more conflicts across the country.
“The Waterways Bill is another land- grabbing move like RUGA by ethnic supremacists who are working against the unity of the country.
“Major rivers in Nigeria can be made available, by federal law if the bill is passed, to Fulani pastoralists and there is nothing the indigenous people within such vicinities can do about it.
“The Police and the security agencies will be handy to enforce it and it will be other White farmers versus the African landowner’s scenario in Southern Africa during the Apartheid season,” it said.
