Ruga: Beyond The Syndicated Mischief

PETER CLAVER OPARAH

Whichever way one looks at it, the fatal tenor that has been imported into Nigerian politics since the defeat of the PDP in 2015 will leave all of us casualties with the way things are going in Nigeria. That we admit the truism in this statement or deny it makes no difference but the fact remains that we are collectively endangered by the vicious politics that had been made to dominate the country’s affairs since 2015. Even as those that mischievously sow this dread naively think they will be immune from the fallouts of their mischief, no one knows who will bear the greatest brunt of the present tendency to lay enough political booby traps on every issue in Nigeria.

Take the Ruga policy as an instance. I can see the mischievous glints in the eyes of those that are frantically trying to grow hate against the Fulani just because Buhari who toppled their applecart in 2015 is Fulani but we all know that when the fan hits the shit, there is nothing that suggests the Fulani will bear the biggest chunk of the troubles that will come from this silly effort to cut the nose to spit onthe face. Stripped of all the malevolent politics and divisive slants built into the Ruga policy by those that see the pulling down of the Nigerian polity as enough vengeance for their loss of political power, the Ruga policy is a competent effort to stop the over-politicized and over-dramatized herdsmen/farmers clash which had been made to dominate our national narratives since the PDP lost power in 2015. As is well known, herdsmen migration in every remote part of Nigeria is as old as the nation itself. Even then, the clash between herdsmen and  farmers predates the Buhari regime. But it became such noxious case since Buhari, a Fulani came to power. Even as regimes before Buhari witnessed more vicious cases of clashes between farmers and itinerant herdsmen, there was no effort to elevate it to such divisive heights as had happened since Buhari came to power.

Before Buhari came, clashes between herdsmen and farmers were accommodated as just one of the numerous security glitches that tug at the soul of our nationhood. Activities of herdsmen were accommodated as just one of the cultural aspects of our national history. But since Buhari came, herdsmen and their age-old activities have become illegitimate acts that other Nigerians cannot live with. Clashes that exerted larger tolls before Buhari came had been made to look like new events and every efforts have been made to re-baptize traditional crimes and anomies in Fulani herdsmen light. All these are efforts to get back at Buhari for the singular ‘crime’ that he led the electoral rout of the PDP in 2015!

So the Ruga policy was meant to voluntarily set up cattle colonies in willing states where cattle-rearing is restricted and make such colonies livable for the cattle rearers and nothing more. What should be the crime in such policy except the obnoxious, deadly politics that has seized the country since 2015? Why should those who have mischievously promoted the politics of herdsmen invasion since 2015 feel repelled by the Ruga politics if not that they are seized by insensate political vices that sees no solution to their antics by the Buhari government? What should be the opposite of Ruga if not the continuation of herdsmen activities, which, by the way, predates our independence history? Why should those who have been fixated in raising ceaseless hoaxes about the activities of herdsmen since 2015 be opposed to domesticating cattle rearing activities if not that they are seized by an insatiable gale of political mischief that will certainly consume them in the long run?

Some aspects of the Ruga policy that are lost to the hate-mongers and divisive tendencies that have mounted a strident opposition against it is that it is purely voluntary and not forced on any state. So it can only be worked out in any state that voluntarily donates land for it and no more. Again, there is this silly, purblind and self-deprecatory feeling that Ruga is exclusively for Fulani. This is a way of saying that it is only Fulani that breed cattle or has the capability to breed cattle in the entire world. Stripped of the bland myopia that encases opposition to Ruga, we have  the borderless opportunities Ruga opens to people that hitherto don’t engage in cattle breeding as well as the limitless frontiers it offers for the expansion of local economies. We are not even going into the healthier quality of cattle the policy stands to produce. The silly feeling that cattle is for Fulani and any mention of cattle connotes an astounding illiteracy that cannot find a place in the modern world. So nothing stops any state from engaging in Ruga exclusively for its own citizens and tap the benefits from that new frontier of agriculture and economy.

But, from all intents and purposes, the opposition to Ruga is purely driven by political self-interest and the desire to turn over the table to satisfy hurting political feelings and nothing more. This is why some who should know have allowed themselves to be blinded by the primitive division, rabid hatred and dangerous intercalation that they have imported into an otherwise laudable program that will not only curb the cases of friction associated with nomadic animal husbandry   but reflate the economy of any entity that chooses to engage in it.

The rabid devilry built into the opposition to Ruga comes unraveled when we consider the fact that the past Jonathan regime, which was defeated by Buhari and for which the rabid merchants of the present hate and division have admiration for, approved a huge sum of N100 billon for cattle ranching as its own way of curbing the herdsmen/farmers clashes. Not even one of the people desperately sowing hate and division over the Ruga program presently raised an opposition to this and not disappointing its corrupt, clueless predilection, the regime did absolutely nothing on this and never accounted for the huge approval until it was voted out of power. What more, it was Gabriel Suswan, former governor of Benue where the apostles of hate and rabid divisive politics presently anchor their trade that headed the committee that recommended this policy to the Jonathan regime. Curiously, all those seriously inciting hate today in the name of opposing Ruga are agents, supporters, beneficiaries and enablers of that regime and its party, PDP! What has changed that has made cattle breeding a crime and made any policy geared towards finding a practical solution to the herdsmen/farmers clashes criminal today? PDP lost the power it used in the main, to despoil and plunder the commonwealth and who led the routing? Buhari a Fulani. So everything associated with Fulani has suddenly become evil and the various prebendal groups that benefitted from the byzantine corruption of the PDP era feel so good feeding this dangerous politics.

Sure, the government has suspended the Ruga policy; ostensibly to do more work on its implementation but it remains the best way to deal with an age-old problem that has been twisted to look like a recent one just to tar Buhari and expand the boundaries of division and hate in Nigeria. The government should know that to those that shoot this poisonous dart, Buhari is stuck by being a Fulani and noting he does will vitiate their resolve to ensure that head or tail, he will be heckled with the kind of mischief they are desperately sowing now n this herdsmen issue.  Was it surprising that as soon as Atiku, a Fulani emerged as PDP presidential candidate, every form of Fulani herdsmen-tagged killings stopped and politics around Fulani herdsmen ceased till he was defeated and the devilry was restarted?

We have seen the saber-rattling by different fronts of these political war-mongers against Ruga. We have seen the exhuming of deadly religious, tribal, ethnic, primordial sentiments against a policy that should ordinarily not have any religious, tribal, ethnic coloration. On the other side, we have seen the war cry of Northern radical youths against syndicated politicization of Ruga. All these speak of a nation on clear tenterhooks because of the ravaging selfish interests of displaced political share reapers who would care no hoot if Nigeria burns as a way of assuaging their feeling of hurt over their loss of power. But surely, Nigeria will survive this and will tap the benefits of Ruga and such other policies this government has painstakingly pursued to recover a nation battered to the bones by ultra-corrupt tendencies who are behind the present opposition to Ruga as well as behind the opposition to very many policies the Buhari regime has undertaken to recover Nigeria from the ruins they left here.

Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com