The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday accused the Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia as the brain behind the inclusion of Benue as one of the seven States where the Federal Government proposes to build 1,000 units of houses for the Fulani people.
Vice President Kashim Shettima at the weekend announced that President Bola Tinubu had approved a total of N50 billion for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to kick-start the Pulaku initiative – a non-kinetic solution to the crisis confronting the north east region.
Shettima said that President Tinubu had approved the construction of 1, 000 houses in Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger and Benue, with all the ancillary facilities of schools, clinics, veterinary clinics and ranches for the fulani community; in Kaduna and Benue, he insisted that all the victims must be carried along.”
Reacting to the development, PDP in Benue State, in a statement by its publicity secretary, Bemgba Iortyom said, the Benue State governor was only dancing to the tune of Fulani lobby groups who supported his election.
“Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state puts it pointedly to Governor Hyacinth Alia that he is the one who put Benue on that list of Fulani colonisation in order to fulfill promises he made to Fulani lobby groups to accommodate herdsmen in the state in return for their support and sponsorship during his campaigns at the last elections,” Bemgba said.
The Benue PDP demanded that Governor Alia should with dispatch remove Benue from the list of colonisation, as the people of the state across all sections, the traditional leadership, religious organizations, civil society, institutions of representative leadership, had all during the government of former President Muhammadu Buhari administration clearly rejected such attempts to have herdsmen colonies in the state.
“Benue had vehemently rejected Ruga, the Water Resources Bill, Cattle Colony, Grazing Routes and every other form of Fulani colonisation efforts as were made in the past and the situation has not changed.
“PDP reiterates that Benue does not need a Fulani colony, what the state needs is Governor Alia’s fulfillment of his promises to IDPs to resettle them back on their ancestral lands,” the statement added.
The PDP stressed that Benue will resist with all means lawfully available to its people, attempts by Governor Alia and his allies in Abuja to settle Fulani herdsmen on lands they displaced the people from through killings and plunder.
According to PDP, as reflected in the principle driving the Prohibition of Open Grazing and Ranches Establishment Law, Fulani are permitted to live and do lawful business in the state, it is, however, such policies as will negates such principle of peaceful coexistence that will be resisted by the people.
“The party expects that the governor is aware of the deathly serious nature of this matter and that he cannot afford to dismiss it and attempt to have a Fulani colony established on any inch of Benue soil,” the statement said.
The party recalled that former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo while visiting Benue in 2018, made a commitment on behalf of the Federal Government to resettle those displaced across the State back to their lands and as well made a pledge of N10billion to them.
The government, PDP explained has not fulfilled the promise since the displaced persons in the IDP camps are still even to date being attacked and killed by Fulani herdsmen right there in the camps and are unable to go near their plundered and desolate ancestral lands to scavenge for food.
PDP lamented that it was inhuman to even contemplate settling those oppressors in comfort while their victims are languishing in hellish conditions, and this amounts to thumbing-up criminality while rubbing the nose of the victim into his blood spilled by the ‘oppressor’.
