The federal government's decision to stamp Ruga settlement on the coutry, has perhaps met with its stiffest opposition so far. Speaking in Lagos today at the Lagos venue of the launch of United Nations' Solutions 17 SDG program by Creative Youth Community Development Initiative (CYCDI) and CITC Global Consulting Limited, Prof Wole Soyinka, who was a Special guest at the event spoke to the press saying, the federal government's Regards settlement project, is elementary and will bring about an explosion and trouble in the country.
"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 goes to Ijebu Ode and eat up their plant seedlings and so on and you expect people to be quiet?"
The noble laureate said that the way the President handled the issue of cattle in his first term in office, was enough to make him lose the last election, held in the country.
"President Buhari deserved to have lost the last election for the laikadaisical attitude he took to the issue of cattle rearing in the country," said Prof. Woke Soyinka, as he continued further. "People have been killed in hundreds just because of the failure of leadership at a critical time. And the cattle rearers 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 cattles eat their crops and then you come up with ruga.
"I think that there is going to be trouble in this country if this rugs 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," He added.
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