Ekiti, Benue, Cross River join S’East in rejecting Ruga

There is no letup in the controversial Ruga Settlement programme being proposed by the Federal Government to arrest the intractable farmers-herders crisis across the country. While Bauchi and Gombe have endorsed the proposal, Ekiti, Benue and Cross River states have joined the South East region in rejecting it.

This is even as the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Arewa, Ohanaeze youths and others have weighed in on the contentious issue. The Presidency had on Sunday said the settlement 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.

The Ruga pilot projects are Sokoto, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Kogi, Taraba, Katsina, Plateau, Kebbi, Zamfara and Niger. Apart from the South-East,  Darius Ishaku (Taraba) and Ondo State government have also rejected the Ruga settlements, saying they would not give out their land for herdsmen’s settlements in their states.

But Governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, who spoke to journalists, yesterday, after he met behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja, to discuss pressing issues of the state including insecurity, said Bauchi was ready for Ruga settlement. To just his position, he said about 70 per cent of the population of the state were Fulani.

However, Benue State government restated its opposition to the programme.

Governor Samuel Ortom, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, said contrary to Presidency’s claim, no land in Benue State has been gazetted for grazing routes, grazing reserves, cattle colonies and Ruga settlements.



Ortom who insisted that Benue has already made known its opposition to Ruga settlements matter, challenged the Federal Government to publicly tender documents of the claimed gazetted lands in Benue State to put the matter to rest.

Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe also revealed that the state has signed up for the establishment of Ruga in the state. The governor said he had engaged the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with a view to subscribing to the initiative.

  “We had a meeting with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry with a view of engaging them to make sure that while the Federal Government is being driven away and chastised in other states for embracing or deciding to help our native Fulani people who are mostly cattle rearers, we will engage and make sure that we provide all that they need to facilitate the take off of the Ruga programme in Gombe State,”  Inuwa said.

SUN