Ruga: The FG reward for terrorism -By Richard Maduku

There is too much impunity in the air these days in Nigeria.  It is as if we are in a banana republic where institutions such as the National Assembly, security outfits, the media, labour unions, students’ associations, Non-Governmental Organisations and the like are hapless. Even altruistic individuals like the late Gani Fawehinmi usually referred to as the voice of the voiceless are very rare these days.  Anyone who whimpers is tagged a wailer today.  It wasn’t this bad even during military regimes in the past.

For instance, a set of persons would be designated as the fourth most brutal terrorist group in the world yet they still move about freely (even with rifles!) without our lawmakers sitting the security chiefs down to know why it is so. A spokesperson for this same group would openly boast of killing over a hundred persons in retaliation for their cattle that were allegedly rustled and nothing is done to him! A state governor would threaten foreign election observers that those of them who made certain reports back home would leave in body bags and no TV station quizzed him on who was going to do the butchering. The same governor went on to state that he had paid off some foreign Fulani bandits and nobody questioned him where he got the money from and if that was the right way to treat criminals in a democracy. These are not all.

A media aide to the President would warn farmers that it was foolishness for them to obstruct Fulani herdsmen because they would lose both their lives and the land they were protecting yet nobody, even his clansmen who pride themselves as enlightened, questioned him to know whether that was state policy. A former Chief of Army Staff would indict the military of shielding armed Fulani bandits and providing them with logistics and no retired general would rise up to say something on such a grave allegation from a highly respected colleague!  Another retired general, who was also a Civil War hero and former Head of State in a military regime and twice an elected President, would cry out that there are plans to “fulanise” and Islamise the country and nothing is being done in government circles to prove him wrong. In fact, what many see as the opposite actually happened a few weeks after his alarm and if you don’t already know, it is the “Ruga” scheme.

Without first sending feelers to all the areas to be affected especially in the southern and the Middle Belt states, the Federal Government came up like a bolt out of the blues with a project to spread these hardened Fulani terrorists in all the states of the federation in a project turbaned as “Ruga” scheme!  According to its authors, swathes of lands in all the 36 states of the federation were to be carved out for only the nomadic Fulani terrorists. This was to open ranches for their animals instead of open grazing in which they have been killing farmers that refused them entry into their farms.  All amenities of a modern city such as good roads, schools, clinics, regular electricity, mosques etc were to be provided in these settlements. The government has also said it is setting up a radio that transmits in only their language for them.

To rational people, the Ruga scheme is like robbers terrorising a city being given a part of the same city to live in after upgrading it for them to stop their terrorism! Though it has been suspended in states that didn’t want it, the reason given for this scheme is the last thing expected of a government that is for justice for all its citizens and is also determined to stop terrorism in any form. There is no place in the civilised world today where persons who ought to be prosecuted for their terrorist acts are treated like they were abandoned babies! As if that is not bad enough, they are to be installed on the graves of those they have butchered, in the midst of women they had raped and torched their homes! How would survivors, some of whom are now refugees in their own country, feel when this scheme comes to pass?

In the knowledge-driven world of today, nations or organisations are not searching for persons from one particular ethnic group but for individuals from every group. They are searching for persons like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Phillip Emeagwali, Aliko Dangote, Jelani Aliyu and others that can inspire and add value to life – not those who value cows more than human beings!  Messrs Aliko Dangote and Jelani Aliyu from the Hausa/Fulani stock are the type of persons other states in the country would want in their midst.  Dangote, for instance, has acquired a chunk of land in Lagos State where he is building what is believed to be the biggest petroleum refinery in Africa.  He was not imposed on the land by fiat.

Many people are also asking the reason for spreading the terrorists into all the states especially the southern states where land is like gold. There is hardly a stretch of road in the South where one could drive for 30 minutes without passing through towns. For instance, from Warri to Ughelli, a distance of less than 30 kilometres, one has to pass through five towns! But one could drive in many parts of the North where the Fulani are overlords for hours without passing through a town or even a settlement! There is land to accommodate all the nomadic herdsmen in the country in the North. In fact, about a year ago, the present Kano State Governor, Umar Ganduje, had volunteered to resettle all the nomadic herders in the country into ranches in his state alone.  If there is no ulterior motive behind the Ruga scheme, the core North alone could absorb them for these ranches with vast spaces to spare!

It is believed in some quarters that the nomadic Fulani cannot be confined to any settlement, no matter how large and well-equipped. It is feared that they will break out from these settlements to neighbouring lands in no time to become the vanguard of a Fulani militia in their quest for new places to subjugate. Some persons had claimed that nomadic Fulani all over West and Central Africa have now realised that they needed a place to retire to after their wandering and have therefore settled for Nigeria as their homeland! To some, the Ruga project is nothing but a ruse to fulfil this objective.  The heightened attacks on farming communities in the last four years are believed by many to be a deliberate strategy to terrorise them to the extent the Ruga scheme would be welcomed as an olive branch.

But from the vociferous opposition to the scheme, it has shown that the authors had underrated both the intelligence and the mood of the people. The people are afraid the fate that befell the Hausa will also be their lot if they yielded an inch of their land to the Fulani.  It could also take the form of perennial bloody clashes between the indigenes and the Fulani settlers as in southern Kaduna and Jos. From the antecedents of the Fulani even outside Nigeria, the people opposing the scheme know it is sure to spark off conflagrations all over the country in future if allowed! The only good thing the scheme has brought out is the massive opposition it has generated, the like of which we had not seen in recent times despite all the impunity in the air.

Maduku, a retired Nigerian Army (Infantry) captain and novelist, lives in Effurun-Otor, Delta State.