The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Benue state branch has rejected the federal Government proposal for a Fulani Colony in their state. The Vice president had last week during a function in Maiduguri disclosed that the Tinubu led administration has approved the construction of 1000 houses in Sokoto, Kebbi, kastina, Zamfara, Niger and Benue states with all modern equipment, School, clinics and vetenary and ranches that will be handed over to Fulani people as cattle colony.
Speaking through its state publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom in Makurdi, the capital of Benue state today, the opposition PDP described the move by the federal government for the Fulani as ‘deathly serious nature’ and vowed that they will resist it with all their might in the state.
Former president Muhammadu Buhari had attempted similar move to establish a cattle colony that was aborted halfway with former governor Samuel Ortom leading the rejection.
In a statement released by the PDP in Benue today which was made available to newsmen, the party called on the state governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia to remove the state from the list.
According to the PDP party Benue state had never had a peer-to-peer basis for the inclusion of the state among the other selected states which all have large indigenous Fulani populations with substantial land holdings on which such colonies could be sited.
The statement partly reads; “In other words, in those other states it could be natural to have such colonies where a Fulani population is already in situ and which would seamlessly be accommodated therein.
“Benue has no such indigenous Fulani population with land holdings where such a colony could be established.
“Secondly, 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.
It laments that similar promise that former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo made in 2018 on behalf of the Federal Government to resettle those displaced back to their lands and also made a pledge of 10 billion to them has never seen the light of the day.
It added, “That promise by VP Osinbajo has not been fulfilled to this moment and the displaced persons in the IDP camps are still even to date being attacked and killed by Fulani herdsmen right there in the camps and dare not venture near their plundered and desolate ancestral lands to scavenge for food.