Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, opposed the suggestion of the federal government to create Ruga colonies for herdsmen across the country.
Speaking at the launch of the U.N. Solutions 17 SDG program in Lagos on Tuesday, Soyinka talked to the federal government about the concept that he said could cause Nigeria to explode.
According to him: “Unless treated with care, Ruga will be an explosion. But why don’t we use excellent models to adapt our strategies? This is not the way in which individuals and nations cope with cattle problems.
“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?”
He stated the handling of the herdsmen issue by President Muhammadu Buhari was enough to make him lose re-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.
“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 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 said.
