Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka yesterday joined the raging cattle settlements dispute, describing the policy as a keg of gunpowder.
The planned Ruga (settlements) is the Federal Government’s antidote to the bloody herders/farmers clashes, which have taken many lives, setting Nigeria on edge.
Even before its execution, the policy has sparked a huge row, with some states, including those that are not earmarked for the project, rejecting it.
The Rivers State Government, the local chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Plateau State and the Berom community yesterday joined the rising rank of those rejecting the policy.
The Plateau Police Command warned against street protests in the Northcentral state.
Lending his voice to the growing opposition against the cattle settlements proposal, Prof Soyinka warned that the idea could cause Nigeria to explode.
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Speaking in Lagos at the launch of the United Nations’ Solutions 17 SDG programme, Soyinka berated the federal government for promoting such a proposal.
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.
“When cattle go to Ijebu-Ode and eat up their plant seedlings and so on, and you expect people to be quiet?”
In the Nobel laureate’s view, the handling of the herdsmen issue by President Muhammadu Buhari was enough to make him lose re-election.
The literary icon said: “President Buhari deserved to have lost the last election for the lackadaisical attitude he took to the issue of cattle rearing in the country.