Middle Belt Forum blasts Ortom, Ishaku for rejecting FG’s cattle ranching initiative

The Concerned Middle Belt Citizens Forum (CMBCF) has faulted Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state, and Darius Ishaku, his Taraba counterpart, for kicking against the planned Ruga settlement for herders.

Ortom and Ishaku had opposed the initiative which the Buhari administration had said is targetted at resoling the lingering herders-farmers crisis.

But at a press conference on Wednesday, Augustine Awulu, national president of CMBCF, said the governors are deliberately stalling peace efforts to end the nagging menace.

Awulu said Ruga settlement for the herders remains a lasting panacea to the conflict between farmers and cattle rearers.

“The Concerned Middle Belt Citizens Forum” (CMBCF) is again constrained to speak to Nigerians for obvious reasons. In the course of the week, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) led by President Muhammadu Buhari announced its intention to experiment with establishing “Ruga Settlements,” for pastoral herders in 12 pilot states of the country,” he said.

“Surprisingly, this policy has been greeted with a strong cynicism, antagonism and antipathy by some States Governors in Nigeria from the Southeast and North Central States. We consider this absurd in the truest sense of it.

“We are not principally concerned with whatever the Governors of the Southeast think about this policy which is a carefully thought-out plan and strategy to end the regime of clashes, killings and destruction between herders and farmers in Nigeria.

“We have grieved over these skirmishes enough and President Buhari had sufficiently notified us that ‘Whatever it will take, I am determined to bring peace between farmers and herders’. The President aims at adopting a middle course as an enduring solution between the herders and farmers. And Ruga Settlements, are ideal by our sense of fair judgement.

“Therefore, we were not disappointed when Governors of the Southeast opposed it; but drenched in sadness when the twosome of Taraba state Governor, Arch. Dairus Ishaku and his Benue State counterpart, Hon. Samuel Ortom voiced opposition to Ruga settlements.

“Northerners do not share same cultural ties or even economic proclivities with the Southeast. Easterners are basically businessmen and women or commercialists or traders. But in the Middle Belt, we are farmers notable in crops and animal husbandry. There is little essence in emphasizing that we need one another to survive in this hostile world.

“And we must necessarily see ourselves as members of the same family, bond by the same economic destiny. Its difficult to change this narrative now, as wished by some partisan State Governors, who are exploiting the herders/farmers crises to protect their unpopular decisions and blur shortcomings as state leaders.”