‘No land for armed militias’ – Middle belt group reject Tinubu’s proposed Ruga settlement

A north-central group, the Middle Belt Patriots has rejected a new directive by the federal government for the creation of grazing areas for herders in Benue, Kaduna, Kwara and other states in the region.

The group urged state governors not to succumb to pressure from the Federal Government to cede lands to herders for grazing.

According to the group, yielding to such demands would worsen the security situation in the Middle Belt region and other parts of the country.

Recall that President Bola Tinubu had, while speaking at the flag-off of the agricultural mechanisation revolution for food security in Minna, Niger State capital, called on governors to give parts of the land in their states to Fulani herders for Ruga or ranching purposes.

But in a statement signed by its Director of Media and Strategic Communications, Steven Kefas, the Middle Belt Patriots wondered how the federal government “constantly panders to the interests of the pastoralists at the detriment and displacement of the indigenous populations whose lands and lives are being overrun by the armed ethnic militias affiliated with the herders”.

The statement reads: “We of the Middle Belt Patriots vehemently condemn and reject the recent directive from the Federal Government asking state governors to make land available for grazing by Fulani herdsmen.

“This provocative and ill-advised order shows a shocking disregard for the already tenuous security situation in the Middle Belt region that has been under sustained violent attack by armed Fulani ethnic militias.

“We sternly warn the political leaders, monarchs, and youth/community leaders of the Middle Belt region – Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, and sections of Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Southern Kaduna, and Gombe – to outright disregard and defy this reckless federal directive.

“Capitulating to these demands and ceding more land for grazers will only fan the flames of the ethnic clashes, further the genocidal massacres, escalate the violent displacement of indigenes from their ancestral lands, and jeopardise the fragile peace in a region that has already suffered immensely.”