Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has frowned at the proposed move by the federal government to establish RUGA settlements across Nigeria for herdsmen.
Soyinka, who made his position known while speaking at the launch of United Nations’ Soothe unions 17 SDG program, added that Buhari’s disposition on herdsmen should have cost him the presidential election.
His words:
“I travel everywhere. It has to be handled in a way that is logical, comprehensible to the environment. When a cattle walks up to the window of my house in Abeokuta, a house which is located in a residential area, then there’s a problem.
“When cattle go to Ijebu Ode and eat up their plant seedlings and so on and you expect people to be quiet?
“President Buhari deserved to have lost the last election for the lackadaisical attitude he took to the issue of cattle rearing in the country.
“People have been killed in hundreds just because of the failure of leadership at a critical time. And the cattle herders have been given a sense of impunity. They kill without any compunction, they drive away from the farmers who have been contributing to the food solutions in the country, the cattle eat their crops and then you come up with Ruga.
“I think that there is going to be trouble in this country if this from Ruga thing is not handled imaginatively and with humanity as a priority. Any country where cattle takes priority over human life is definitely at an elementary stage,” he maintained.