The Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, has explained the reason for the 30-days ultimatum issued to the President to withdraw his statement “suspending the implementation of RUGA.”
President Buhari had suspended the RUGA settlement programme following the outcry from Nigerians, mainly the southerners.
Speaking to ThePunch on why they gave the directive, the spokesperson for the group Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said, “for clarity, there was never a time we gave an ultimatum to northern governors or governors of any region to implement RUGA. We only warned all governors against overheating the polity with their rigid stand on every Fulani resettlement initiative of the Federal Government. We made this submission before the announcement of the suspension of the programme by the government which coincidentally came on the same day but hours apart.
“The 30- day ultimatum was directed at the Federal Government and indeed the nation’s security agencies to move to stop the reported raging madness of the harassment and forcible ejection of the Fulani from some parts of southern Nigeria. For some reason, a hostile section of the media mutilated and manipulated the report unnecessarily to cause anxiety and heighten the tensions.
“The reality is that the ultimatum was to ask the Presidency to show more zeal and effort at protecting the lives and property of pastoral communities everywhere and ensure that their right to free movement is not impeded by any legislation or obstacle imposed by a state or a community.
When asked what the group will do since the RUGA policy is still suspended and their 30-days ultimatum is about to expire, Suleiman maintained that “the ultimatum was given for the government to react to certain things. We all knew that before we spoke, the Federal Government and all other tiers of government and agencies were silent while a certain ethnic and religious group was singularly targeted for destruction. We can now see that the Federal Government has taken two major steps towards heeding our call. First, the Presidency was awakened to its role by vowing to protect all citizens, including the Fulani of course, and to uphold the rights of citizens to live and flourish in any part of the country.”
