The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State has rejected the proposed establishment of a Fulani colony in the state.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the PDP’s statement comes after Vice President Kashim Shetima announced last week that the President Tinubu administration had approved the construction of 1,000 houses in Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, and Benue states with all the ancillary facilities of schools, clinics, veterinary clinics, and ranches for the Fulani community.
The party said that the state does not need a Fulani colony and that what it needs is for Governor Hyacinth Alia to fulfil his promises to resettle internally displaced persons (IDPs) back on their ancestral lands.
The PDP also said that it is unjust and insensitive to have a colony established for the Fulani with all the facilities for modern living in a state where victims of the genocidal atrocities committed by those same Fulani are still displaced from their lands and means of livelihood.
The party further said that it will resist with all means lawfully available to its people any attempt to settle Fulani herdsmen on lands they displaced the people from through killings and plunder.
The PDP said that Benue was included in the list of states for the colony even though it does not have a large indigenous Fulani population with substantial land holdings on which such a colony could be sited.
The party also said that the proposed colony is insensitive to the victims of the Fulani herdsmen attacks in Benue, who are still displaced from their homes and living in camps.
The statement reads in part:
“In other words, in those other states, it could be natural to have such colonies where a Fulani population is already in situ and which would seamlessly be accommodated therein.
“Benue has no such indigenous Fulani population with land holdings where such a colony could be established.
“Secondly, it is unjust and ultimately insensitive to have a colony established for the Fulani with all the facilities for modern living in a state where victims of the genocidal atrocities committed by those same Fulani are still displaced from their lands and means of livelihood and living in sub-human conditions in camps that bear semblance to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.”
The statement further said, “PDP, therefore, demands that Governor Alia should with dispatch remove Benue from that list of colonisation, as the people of the state across all sections, the traditional leadership, religious organisations, civil society, and institutions of representative leadership, had all during the Buhari administration rejected such attempts to have herdsmen colonies in the state.
“Benue had vehemently rejected Ruga, the Water Resources Bill, the Cattle Colony, Grazing Routes, and every other form of Fulani colonisation efforts as they were made in the past, and the situation has not changed.
“Benue will resist with all means lawfully available to its people attempts by Governor Alia and his allies in Abuja to settle Fulani herdsmen on lands they displaced the people from through killings and plunder.
“It is the understanding of the party that, as reflected in the principle driving the Prohibition of Open Grazing and Ranches Establishment Law, Fulani are permitted to live and do lawful business in the state; it is, however, such policies as will negate such a principle of peaceful coexistence that will be resisted by the people.
“The party expects that the governor is aware of the deathly serious nature of this matter and that he cannot afford to dismiss it and attempt to have a Fulani colony established on any inch of Benue soil.
