Wike, Okorocha join mounting list of those against FG’s proposed cattle colonies

Governors of Rivers and Imo states, Nyesom Wike and Rochas Okorocha, respectively have joined the ever growing list of governors and Nigerians opposed to proposed establishment of cattle colonies across the country by the Federal Government.

In his rejection to the proposal, Rivers State’s Governor Wike said his state does not have land for a cattle colony, adding that his government would not allow Rivers to be controlled by external forces.

“We will not allow our state to be controlled by external forces; we will not be drawn into debates on cattle colonic. We don’t have land for any cattle colony in Rivers State,” the governor, said on Tuesday when he granted audience to D-Source Connect Group at the Government House in Port Harcourt.

Okorocha, who denied earlier rumours that he had accepted to make land in Imo State available for cattle colonies said that such rumours was wicked, unfounded and untrue.

Speaking on Tuesday in Owerri, the state capital through the state Commissioner for Information, Professor Nnamdi Obiaraeri, he said that there was no law, policy, decision, plan, request or intention to cede, allocate or designate any part of Imo State as a cattle colony.

“This information that Imo has ceded a part for the proposed cattle colony is wicked, unfounded and untrue, although it represents the typical product of warped thinking of desperate mischief makers via the social media.

“Imo people and members of the public are therefore advised to disregard these baseless and laughable rumours. It is unfortunate that manufacturing wicked and capricious lies on an hourly basis has become the hallmark or DNA of desperate opposition politicians in our dear state,” he said.

Also, a Senator representing Southern Kaduna, Danjuma Laah, had also on Tuesday said that his zone was not going to make any land available for the planned cattle colonies.

“Kaduna South Senatorial Zone and, by extension, the entire Southern Kaduna rejects any attempt to seize more of its lands for the exclusive settlement of herdsmen and their cattle, using state power. Already, there is an existing Cattle Grazing Reserve in Laduga from land taken away from the indigenes of Zangon Kataf and Kachia Local Government Areas dating back decades ago.

“That massive land officially gazetted at 32,000 hectaress, (32,000 football fields), but which the present Kaduna State Government has expanded to 74,000 hectare, was taken from my constituents without compensation till date, as records have it,” Laah said.

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The Federal Government had soon after over 70 persons were massacred on New Year day in an attack by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue State, announced through the Agricultural Minister, Audu Ogbeh, its plan to establish cattle colonies as a measure to guide against incessant herdsmen/farmers clash usually resulting in the deaths several farmers.

Since the announcement however, many governors and other Nigerians have continued to oppose the proposal. Some are alleging that the proposal was a plot by President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, to have his kinsmen colonize the rest of the country.

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