Southern Kaduna Accuses El-Rufai of Abandonment …….Warns Him of Converting Their Lands Into Grazing Reserve
Southern Kaduna Accuses El-Rufai of Abandonment
…….Warns Him of Converting Their Lands Into Grazing Reserve
By Alex Uangbaoje
Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) from Southern Kaduna has accused the Kaduna State governor Malam Nasir El-Rufai of unabashed vendetta and total abandonment of the Southern Zone of the State.
They said the change they voted for is being delivered with shocking injustice, clear favouritism, arrant arrogance, inconsiderate policies and blatant violation of extant laws.
Addressing a press conference in Kaduna, the leader of the coalition, James Kanyib said that even though the governor spent millions of Naira to form a collaboration with northern neighbouring states as soon as he came to power “we can now see that he was only talking about his kinsmen in Birnin Gwari and surrounding areas, not Southern Kaduna.
”A task force of the military, Police, Directorate of State Security Services and the Nigerian Civil Defence Corps was formed, well kitted and funded. They have now chased out all the bandits and rustlers in Birnin Gwari and environs and recovered thousands of cattle and sheep stolen by the gangsters.
“Villages in that enclave that were deserted as a result of the attacks on them have since bounced back to live.
“The villages have farmed and bred more animals, thus expecting a relatively prosperous harvest season. The robbery on the Birnin Gwari connected highways have stopped and people are free to travel with no fear.
“But in the case of Southern Kaduna, where, as has been published in the press, at least 10, 000 have been killed, scores of villages ruined and hundreds of thousands made homeless, the governor set up a committee under a distinguished son of Southern Kaduna, Gen. Martins Luther Agwai (retd) to “look at the problem and proffer solution.
“Several villages in Sanga and in Takad Chiefdom in Kaura Local Government Area have been under the occupation of the herdsmen who kill and chase out surviving villagers.
“Daily killings are going in these villages and the Sanga Road artery has become hot bed for violent robbery far worse than what was obtained in Birnin Gwari. The Governor would rather play blind to these happenings, because he probably feels he has no responsibility to protect those who did not vote for him.
“We just want to have it on record that he has abandoned Southern Kaduna people.
”El Rufai made security a big issue in his campaign and swore that no indigene or resident of Kaduna State would be killed and the murderers not found and prosecuted.”
They also accused the governor of outright rejection and refusal to Implement the Proposal to Upgrade the Kafanchan Campus of the Kaduna State University to Kaduna State University of Science and Technology that would have been in the interest of the Southern Kaduna people.
The group warned the El-Rufai of trying to turn their lands into grazing reserve for his Fulani kinsmen.
“we want to state that we reject any move to convert any portion of our ancestral lands into an exclusive economic, socio-cultural and political enclave of some people.
“The experience of Southern Kaduna with Laduga is enough evidence that any Cattle Grazing Reserve is a direct assault on our people and shall be regarded as a clever way of building up emirate in Southern Kaduna in the future.
“Those who kill our people cannot be rewarded with the lands for which reasons they are killing and occupying our communities. We reject the move, and we promise to use every possible lawful means to stop that plan.
“The best place to create grazing reserves will be in the Birnin Gwari liberated areas and in Northern LGAs of the State, where they share common customs. Even the so-called encroached proposed grazing reserves created in the ‘60s would have not been possible in those days had the Fulani been alleged to have been exterminating our people like today.
“We will rather advise the Governor to secure every inch of Southern Kaduna as contained in his manifesto, so we and the Fulani can live in peace and progress as we have been doing before 2011.” They said.
