We Can’t Throw Away Ruga Outright
The retiring Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, His Eminence Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan recently held an interactive session with select journalists at his residence in Abuja as part of the 50th anniversary of his priesthood. He gave
Although Ruga has been suspended for now, what is your take on it?
This RUGA thing is reminding me of the prescription of Shi’ites. Again, government makes a flamboyant statement ‘we are going to establish RUGA settlements all over Nigeria, then they provoke major crises, confusion and they begin to withdraw and say they are suspending it and some people say don’t suspend just cancel. Again, at that time, I remarked that let us thank them for suspending it. It is already a step and maybe suspending it is government’s way of saying we are sorry and therefore, we should pursue the suspension to its logical conclusion.
That was what happened during the RUGA controversy and that is the same thing with the prescription of Shi’ites and later telling us ‘no, it is not the religion that we are proscribing but the violent and criminal activities of their members. In that case there is a law for that, you don’t need to proscribe the group, you pursue them based on the crimes they have committed, using the law on the ground.
The major problem I see with RUGA is that it is a very vague kind of project. What exactly it means wasn’t made clear by government and since the government isn’t clear they left room for all kinds of explanation of what the RUGA is, what its objective is, how it was going to work and free grounds for all kinds of conspiracy theories, which you can see has generated a major crisis in the nation.
The worst of that kind of conspiracy theory is the idea that the RUGA was supposed to be the epicentre of the Fulani colonisation of every part of our country as a prelude to the eventual takeover of Nigeria by the Fulani race. Have you heard that? I have heard that but do you blame people for arriving at that conclusion, when we haven’t been told what exactly it is. So, it isn’t surprising that eventually, the government decided to suspend it and of course, there was reaction and counter-reaction – some people saying you can’t suspend it and some others saying you must suspend it, you must cancel it.
We even have some state governors wanting to show that they are very loyal to the federal government, saying no we want it and some other state governments find themselves in a tight corner not wanting to appear as bad boys so they want to appear as they would give land for RUGA even if they know that they can’t do it peacefully but it is creating unnecessary problems and I believe these things could have been avoided if there had
can deceive some of the people some of the time but you can’t deceive everybody all the time and sooner or later lies have their lifespan. Lies run very fast but it can’t go very far sooner or later the truth will overtake.
The great controversy that the RUGA generated, which the government should take as a point of lesson is that whatever policy they are bringing out especially, in the present context should be properly explained. Secondly, a policy that is being brought out by the federal government should be for the good of all Nigerians.
They should not leave room for us to believe that this is something to just help Fulani. Why can’t you help Kabba people too? Why only the Fulani and especially, when you are a Fulani? It is very easy for people to think you are being partial. These are basic rules of governance and I hope we have learnt our lessons.
Now that the RUGA policy has been suspended, what is the way forward?
Now, I would like to hope that this controversy shouldn’t just go like that; that we will find again to look at what was the good effect that the RUGA wants to achieve even if it wanted to achieve it just for the Fulani. We can make a case that if it is good for the Fulani, then, it must be good for everybody. I can envisage a situation where every state could decide to setup settlements, where all their young people, who are ready to go into agriculture and animal husbandry can be brought together with housing, power, with everything as I heard they wanted to do with RUGA – set it up for every state – for its young people, who want to go into agriculture instead of walking up and down the street of Abuja looking for stupid jobs that don’t exist and if that was really pursued with commitment and with the kind of resources and money we hear they want to pour into RUGA, that would be a good thing that we have started this kind of thing.
And if you put it that way and for example the government of Kogi says we are going to set up a settlement, any Kogi young man or woman that wants to go into agriculture and animal husbandry apply, we will admit you and you will