Much Ado About Fulani Resettlement

From grazing corridor to grazing reserves, to RUGA, to waterways bill, to National Livestock Transformation Program (NLTP), back to grazing reserves, now back to NLTP. What a policy odyssey.

I have since lost count of the number of iterations and somersaults of the Buhari Administration's Fulani expansionism policy.

Everyone knows they are all trojan horses for forceful land acquisition to resettle Nigerian and non-Nigerian Fulani in Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria.

But have you wondered why in six years of unrelenting policy acrobatics and administrative gymnastics, the expansionist Buhari Administration has been unable to implement anything, anywhere?

Not even in the core Northern states which enthusiastically supported all the policy iterations without exception?

Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, MNSE, FNIStructE, MNICE.

Even to the extent that some State Governments like Kano State went ahead, implemented their own RUGA policies and are calling on herdsmen to come and take possession of free lands, free houses, free pasture without success?

Ask yourself why does the Federal Government not go ahead, partner with, and implement RUGA in the willing states?

Surely when other unwilling States see participating states smiling to the Bank because of RUGA, they will be falling over themselves to join the RUGA train.

Have you wondered why after 6 years of hullabaloo, none of that is happening?

The short answer is that it is so because there is nothing good about the Federal Government's interest in cattle rearing.

It is all a hoax, a gambit to acquire land for free, create new homelands and resettle itinerant Fulani from across Africa.

Many of these Fulani are stateless, jobless people whose only skill is banditry, whose only vocation is terrorism, and whose only occupation is criminality.

Genuine nomadic Fulani herdsmen themselves openly admit that their itinerant cattle cannot compete with ranched cattle either in terms of milk or beef production.

Theirs is a dying trade, a dying past time.
They know it, the Federal Government knows it. We too know it.

All the Fulani are looking for now, and for which reason there is no peace in Nigeria, is not a place to graze their cattle, but a place to lay their anchor, a place to lay their head, a place tocall their permanent home.

In doing that, they neither want to buy land nor pay rent, something naturally expected of all other Nigerians. They want to create new Fulani towns and villages all over the country, making themselves indigenes of all the states, and thereby the real owners of Nigeria.

That is what it is all about. We know it and they know it.

The Buhari Administration knows its grazing policy is a hoax, that is why they cannot commence implementation until there is universal buy-in, by hook or by crook, in all the states of Nigeria.

They know fully well that once they reveal their full intentions in the willing states, the unwilling states will thank their stars they did not fall into the trap of participation.

The Buhari Administration knows once they start implementation, it will be a case of the willing trying to get out, instead of the previously unwilling pleading to join.

That is the reason why there cannot be partial implementation. The Buhari Administration's expansionist policy couched in whatever name currently suits their fancy, must be ‘all-in or no-start’.

It is too sinister to comprehend or fathom, worse still to be experienced.

I truly pity the smart-fool Governors and sophisticatedly stupid politicians who have not seen through all these.

Truly theirs is sophisticated stupidity at its peak.

I dare the Buhari Administration to prove me wrong and commence the implementation of their RUGA or NLTP policy in the willing states.

Let us watch and see how many unwilling states can be convinced by actual results posted by currently participating states, to voluntarily join the scheme in a year's time.

When a glib salesman tells you that a trial will convince you, start looking for the nearest exit.

Oftentimes, there will be none.