The Youth Wing of Southern Kaduna People’s Union, has observed with dismay that the unabated alleged Fulani attacks in the area since 2010 have resulted in the burning down of over 500 houses and the killing of over 4,000 people, mostly women and children.
The national leader of the youth wing of SOKAPU, Comrade Nasiru Jagaba, while addressing a press conference in Kaduna on Tuesday, said, “As we were preparing for this press briefing, we received a distress call that suspected Fulani militia have attacked Nintie and Hayin Gada communities in Jema’a local government area of Kaduna State, killing scores and many sustaining injuries.”
“Recently, governor El-Rufai announced his intention to build grazing reserves across the communities in Southern Kaduna, by so doing, he wants to cohabitate us with the same strange and volatile Fulani that have been attacking defendless communities in Southern Kaduna.
“In addition, El-Rufai’s land reclamation programme in the state has failed to see governance as a continuous enterprise. To buttress our point, governor Ibrahim Yakowa of blessed memory set up a committee and issued a government white paper that explicitly created a boundary between Gbagyi Villa and Kaduna Polytechnic with a sketch plan produced and signed by the Surveyor General of the state.
“But, in a cruel display of power, El-Rufai had sworn with the Quran to demolish the area even when the matter was still pending in court. This shows that the govrrnor has no respect for the rule of law.
“If El-Rufai has made land reclamation a central agenda to his government, why is he not laying claims to the National Eye Centre, Kaduna Polytechnic’s encroached land at Tudun Wada Campus, the flood plains at Kigo Road, National Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research and the Kachia Grazing Reserve? The so-called Kachia grazing reserve which was established by the federal government for the purpose of reducing cattle and farmers clash has now been converted for the building of estates and other business interests by influencial Fulani burgeoises.
“The grazing reserve is not only dubiously converted, but the Fulani have produced a fake gazetted document that reads 70,000 hectares against the known 30,897 hectares proposed by the government and this has never attracted El-Rufai’s attention but, he is losing sleep over a previously settled matter at Gbagyi Villa.
“Since his assumption to office as the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, no any visible development has been recorded in Southern Kaduna. Apart from grazing reserve that he forcefully wants to establish in the area and the planned demolition of Gbagyi Villa, nothing meaningful has been done to us.
“Recently, the federal government announced its plan to build six Federal Universities across the country and one was allocated to Kaduna State. With all the federal higher institutions in the Northern and Central parts of the state, El-Rufai never deemed it fit to site the University in Southern Kaduna in order to attempt to address the deficits in government’s presence, suffered over the years by the people of the region.
“Apart from that, his political appointments are skewed against our people. No wonder, he told the whole world in a Television interview that the population of Christians in the state is a minute 30 per cent as against the staggering 70 per cent Muslims. This is a blatant manipulation of facts, which is a dent on the intellect of El-Rufai because he assumed figures rather than using empirical facts.”
Explaining why he tendered his resignation with the state government, he said, “This has informed my decision to put up my resignation letter so as to stand with my people, to raise my voice against prejudice, social denigration and denial.
“I call on the youth of Southern Kaduna not to succumb to the temptation to use violence in our struggle for freedom, but we must relentlessly speak until the day that all their evil plots fail while equity and justice prevails. Let us break the silence and be dissociated until no inch of land in Southern Kaduna is given for grazing reserve,” he explained.
