Okun Yoruba Reject Cattle Colonies in Kogi
Yekini Jimoh
The Yoruba speaking people of Kogi State under the aegis of the Okun Development Association (ODA) have rejected the proposal to establish cattle colonies for Fulani herdsmen in any part of their six local government areas.
This was made known yesterday to journalists in Lokoja in a communique after a wellattended emergency national congress in Kabba.
The communique which was jointly signed by its National President, Chief Femi Mokikan, and the National Secretary, Pastor Ayo Abereoran, stated that Okun people said the idea of opening cattle colonies as disclosed by Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Chief Audi Ogbeh, was repulsive and repugnant to equity, fairness and natural justice.
The Okun people who are in Kabba-Bunu, Ijumu, Lokoja, Yagba West, Yagba East ,Oworo and Mopamuro Local Government Areas of the state said any proposal to appropriate their land for the promotion of the private business interests of Fulani herdsmen would deny them their right to their ancestral land and would amount to an avoidable time bomb.
The ODA said the cattle colony concept was a disservice to the people’s past, present and future and as such unacceptable.
Described in whatever way, the document said the cattle colony was distasteful, dangerous and with a huge potential to snowball into a major national disaster. The state government last week announced that it had embraced the new policy and volunteered to pioneer the model.
The state Governor, Yahaya Bello, also invited the Fulani who may be facing difficulties elsewhere in the country to feel free to relocate to the state with a directive to the different levels of administration in the state to accommodate them and issue certificates of indigeneship to those among them who want it.
However, the people have rejected the state government’s position which they said was not in the best interest of the Okun people.
The group said cattle rearing was a private business and that the country’s statutes had adequate provisions guiding the way owners should conduct their businesses.
The cattle colonies, it added, were a thinly veiled way of subsidising the private businesses of herdsmen.
The ODA said most of the herdsmen in Okunland had at will and usually unprovoked, launched attacks on their hosts, adding that the situation arose because of the general belief that they were emboldened by the tacit support they seemed to enjoy in certain official quarters.
As a result of such continued threats, it said Okun farmers had almost abandoned farming for fear of attacks by herdsmen.
Noting that the herdsmen crisis was real and could not be wished away, the association advised government to take steps to revive past ranches in Niger and Ondo States facilities and encourage herdsmen to set up similar ones for their use.
Such ranches, it said, would reduce tension between the herdsmen and farmers, encourage the establishment of allied industries to produce cattle feeds and promote the application of modern technology.
ODA therefore enjoined the state government to, in future, take into consideration, the long term overall interests of the people above other interests in its decisions and actions.