Ruga: An Agenda Or A Case Of Insensitivity? -By Minabere Ibelema

Whenever a controversy erupts regarding President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy toward herdsmen, I always wonder whether it reflects insensitivity or a Fulani agenda, as is widely alleged. And frankly I am having a hard time continuing to resist the latter claim.

I have usually found some way to rationalise whatever is presented as evidence of a hegemonic agenda. Regarding cases of Fulani settlers ultimately becoming overloads, I have routinely dismissed them as historical happenstance. But that argument became harder to make with each narrative of the same pattern.

When then a spokesman for the Buhari administration floated the idea of cow colonies, the agenda theory became ever more difficult to resist.

To begin with, the term “colonies” was either a poor choice of word or a Freudian slip, much like APC chieftain Adams Oshiomhole’s pre-election statement that those who cannot handle rigging (oops, defeat) should stay out of politics. Whether “colony” was a poor choice of word or a Freudian slip, it seems revealing.

Even as a test balloon, the idea met with fierce opposition and so the government abandoned it. At least so we thought. The recent announcement of Ruga settlements for herders makes clear that the cow colony idea was never abandoned. There were continued discussions to actualise it by another name. And so, unlike “cow colony” which was floated as an idea, Ruga was announced as a fait accompli.

As it turns out, Ruga is actually a programme being implemented in the shadows of a formal plan along the same line. That plan is outlined in a document titled the “National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) 2019-2028” and dated May 2019. “The purpose … is to layout how a focused effort in this agricultural sub-sector can become a catalyst for building national prosperity,” the document states.

“This will be achieved by bringing together private investors, catalytic government services and capital, and targeted donor support.”

In apparent anticipation of an outcry, the drafters pointed to precedents in South America and elsewhere in Africa. “Using classic value chain building tools, the NLTP is designed to deliver for Nigeria the livestock sector transformation multiple countries have gone through from Paraguay and Brazil to Zambia and Ethiopia,” the document states.

Furthermore, it throws in a carrot for those who would argue (and have argued) that the plan is just for herders. “Pastoralists who manage the national herd should be encouraged and supported with a port folio of tools to manage their transition from today’s business model to a more productive business and operating model,” the document states.

“Similarly, agriculture and small-scale farmers should likewise be supported to become key suppliers to livestock producers, by producing the complex combinations of feed and other supplements needed for informal ranching.”

The administrative structure of the programme is also meticulously laid out. The Office of the Vice President will oversee implementation at the federal level through Project for Agriculture Coordination & Execution (PACE). And it will be guided by the National Economic Council (NEC). At the state level, governors will oversee implementation in liaison with the vice president. And the pilot programme will be in the “7 frontline states” of Adamawa, Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba and Zamfara.

This all sounds good in principle, but the devil is in some unanswered questions. To begin with, why was the plan not a part of a nationwide discussion before it was sprung on the public? Spokesmen for the administration have said that the programme is optional, that the Federal Government will not impose it on any state. Yet, governors of some of the “frontline” states have publicly objected to being made a part of the pilot programme.

And even as the programme was being announced, lands were already being marked out in states that never acceded to the program. As this column is being written, I received a video of community leaders in Benue State yanking off pillars they say are used to mark out a vast area of their land for one of the settlements. So, is Ruga truly optional?

Also, though the NLTP document has Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as having oversight, he has denied being responsible for Ruga. So, what gives? Well, here is the complication.

“Contrary to claims reported in sections of the media, Ruga settlements are not being supervised by the Office of the Vice- President,” Mr Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media and Publicity, is reported to have tweeted. “Ruga is different from the National Livestock Transformation Plan approved by governors under the auspices of the National Economic Council.”

This suggests then that Ruga is a parallel programme that hides behind the formally proposed NLTP. Any wonder that it has set off a firestorm even greater than what greeted the cow colony test balloon. Leaders of all three southern geopolitical regions and the North Central have rejected the plan. That is, four of the country’s six geopolitical regions. But what are they rejecting Ruga or NLTP?

Amidst this confusion, what is certain is that there is inadequate sensitivity to the national mood. Whether as Ruga or NLTP, wisdom would suggest that any plan that would have herders occupy vast territories in non-Fulani states has to be handled carefully. It is not enough for an NEC to approve of it. It is not even enough for governors to approve of it. The people have to be sold on it.

As I was writing this, I received information that the Buhari administration has scrapped, or at least put off implementation of Ruga. Or is it NLTP? Assuming it is true, there remains the question of whether the agenda will be pursued by another means. Might those pushing it resort to the tactic of co-opting individual governors? Politicians being what they tend to be, how many would turn around when the price is right?

The North was not as universally Islamic as it is today. Quite a bit of the Islamisation was spearheaded by Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and premier of the then Northern Nigeria. As the late Joseph Garba wrote in his civil war memoir Revolution in Nigeria: Another View, Bello used a combination of carrots and sticks to cajole non-Muslim chiefs such as his father to convert to Islam and take their people with them.

If a similar tactic gets Southern governors to sign on to Ruga, it will precipitate amass revolt.