The Enugu State Government has assured the people of the state that there is no plan to establish Ruga settlement in any part of the state.
The declaration is at the heels of controversies and protests that have rocked Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area over alleged plan to establish a cattle ranch for herdsmen in the community.
Nimbo is the community where scores of people were massacred with several others permanently disfigured in 2016 by suspected herders.
Last Tuesday, hundreds of the people of the community marched along the Nsukka – Uzo-Uwani – Anambra Federal Highway bearing placards with various inscriptions such as: “Nimbo Community Says No To Cattle Ranch In Their Land QED”.
A viral video shows the protesters, mostly women and youths, displaying placards and chanting: “Nimbo doesn’t want cattle, Nimbo doesn’t want ranching.”
The women also wailed as they marched on the roads with pictures of the caskets used during the mass burial of their husbands and sons.
He said the alleged decision to establish Ruga/cattle ranch without the consent of the community, was the most insensitive of psychologically assaulting a people, whose deaths and injuries were still fresh from the activities of the same people.
“I need to remind you that this same place is where our people were massacred eight years ago. Our crime then was that we asked the herders to stop using their cattle to destroy our crops. When the destruction became too much, we made attempt to chase them away. That was the reason they invaded and slaughtered dozens of our people.
“Since then, the government had never asked how the families of such victims were doing, only for them to just want to establish the same cattle ranch again.
“This is like adding salt to injury. Most of the children of the deceased have since withdrawn from school with hardship dealing with them. The only thing the government wants to remember us for is building Ruga exactly where our people were murdered. I wonder any community that will tolerate this kind of insensitivity,” he said
But reacting to the development, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on mainstream media, Dan Nwomeh, insisted that there was no such RUGA plan by the State Government, adding that ranching would end the intractable crisis between herders and farmers.
He however stated that there is a proposal to establish government owned and controlled ranches in local government areas where cases of farmers/herders crisis were rampant.
Nwomeh said: “There’s no such RUGA plan please. There’s a state government initiative, a proposal really, to establish government owned and controlled ranches in local governments with the worst cases of herders%farmers clashes such as Uzo Uwani, Isi Uzo and Oji River.
“The locations are still being considered. Government will seek the buy-in of the host communities. No government team has visited any proposed site.
“The ranches will be open to all commercial cattle rearers and not just an ethnic group. Ranching is the global best practice that will end open grazing and clashes with farmers”.
