Trouble brews, as Benue PDP says FG’s planned Fulani colonies is attempt to colonize state

A planned move by the Federal Government to establish Fulani colonies around the nation, including Benue State, has been resisted by the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The party in the state described the planned colonies as an attempt to colonise the states for the Fulani tribe.

Many farmers in the state have had clashes with Fulani herders which led to loss of lives and properties.

The situation forced the last administration under Samuel Ortom to establish a law banning open grazing of cattle in the state.

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The Benue PDP made its position public in a statement signed by its state Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom, in Makurdi, on Monday.

Iortyom also implored Governor Hyacinth Alia to remove Benue from the list saying such moves portends danger and darkness for the people of the state.

“It is no longer news that the All Progressives Congress (APC)-controlled administration of President Bola Tinubu has earmarked Benue as one among a few states where a Federal Government sponsored settlement for Fulani herdsmen is to be established,” the party said.

The statement claimed that Vice President Kashim Shettima announced last week at a public event in Maiduguri, Borno State, that President Tinubu had approved the construction of 1,000 houses for the Fulani community in the states of Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, and Benue. The houses will also include all ancillary facilities such as schools, clinics, veterinary clinics, and ranches.

The establishment of those Fulani colonies, according to VP Shettima, is part of a broad plan by the Federal Government to address the conflict in the north.

However, the PDP insisted that “It is unjust and ultimately insensitive to have a colony established for the Fulani with all the facilities for modern living in a state where victims of the genocidal atrocities committed by those same Fulani are still displaced from their lands and means of livelihood and living in sub-human conditions in camps which bear semblance to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany during 2nd World War.”

“PDP, therefore, demands that Governor Alia should, with dispatch, remove Benue from that list of colonisation, as the people of the state across all sections, the traditional leadership, religious organizations, civil society, institutions of representative leadership, had all during the Buhari administration clearly rejected such attempts to have herdsmen colonies in the state.”

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