By TYAV SAM TYAV, Makurdi –
Benue State socio-cultural organisations comprising Tiv, Idoma and Igede have rejected Pulaku initiative as a measure to end the herders/farmers crisis in Nigeria, particularly in the affected parts of the country.
The Chairman of the Benue State socio-cultural organisations, Mr. CP Iorbee Ihagh retired, who spoke with NATIONAL ACCORD on Tuesday, thundered that the policy has no place in the state and urged the federal government to implement the policy where it could help.
Ihagh ,who is also the President General, Mzough u Tiv worldwide, said RUGA and cattle colony initiated by former President Muhammadu Buhari led administration have only resurfaced with a different name and the people of the state would not accept it.
The socio-cultural organisations leader wondered how insensitive the federal government was becoming when people have stayed in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), camps for about ten years and the federal government was not making any concise efforts to resettle them but has decided to come up with a policy simply for the convenience of the Fulanis.
Ihagh, who said he was himself a victim of the herdsmen attack, revealed that the Fulani herdsmen came unprovoked, attacked and displaced them and for about ten years he had not gone to his ancestral homes even as he use to bury his loved ones outside his ancestral home.
He urged the federal government to embrace the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of Benue State, explaining that ranching has no alternative as it remains the best global practice in animals husbandry.
According to him, the attacks on the farming communities which have displaced a lot of people have not only caused shortage of food but schools, churches, hospitals and markets among other things have been destroyed in the affected communities.
He insisted that Nigeria belongs to all and no ethnic group should be placed above other ones, adding that government does not exist for a particular group of people but for all citizens of that nation.
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