Soyinka to Buhari: Your handling of Ruga Settlements may lead to disintegration of Nigeria

“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 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.
With the above statement, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Tuesday, declared that the handling of Ruga Settlements by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration may lead to the disintegration of the country.
While speaking in Lagos at the launch of the United Nations (UN) Solutions 17 SDG programme, he attacked the government for the Ruga idea.
“I think that there is going to be trouble in this country if this Ruga thing is not handled imaginatively and with humanity as priority. Any country where cattle takes priority over human life is definitely at an elementary stage.”
The octogenarian poet and playwright joined the increasing list of people voicing opposition to the Federal Government’s proposal to establish Ruga settlements nationwide, insisting the move would cause an explosion, if not handled with care
He said: “Ruga is going to be an explosion if not handled with care. But why do we not take our policies from good models? This is not the way people and countries deal with issues of cattle.
“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.
“Cattle goes to Ijebu Ode and eat up their plant seedlings and so on and you expect people to be quiet?”
According to Soyinka, Buhari’s handling of the herdsmen issue was enough to make him lose the last election.
“President Buhari deserved to have lost the last election for the lackadaisical attitude he took to the issue of cattle rearing in the country”.