The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has slammed President Bola Tinubu’s government over a proposal to establish cattle ranches in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The secessionist group labelled the proposal as a “dangerous replay of history” and a covert attempt to revive the controversial RUGA settlement scheme under a new name.
The RUGA settlement initiative—short for Rural Grazing Area—was a controversial policy introduced by the Nigerian government under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The government said its primary aim was to address the long-standing and often violent conflict between nomadic Fulani herders and sedentary farmers, particularly in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and southern regions.
The idea was to establish designated settlements where herders could live and rear their livestock in a more structured, sedentary environment.
These settlements were to be equipped with amenities such as schools, veterinary clinics, water supply, markets, and abattoirs. According to the government, the goal was to reduce open grazing, which had led to frequent clashes over land and resources.
While the government framed RUGA as a peace-building and economic development strategy, many Nigerians—especially in the South and Middle Belt—saw it as an attempt to favour one ethnic group, the Fulani, and potentially seize land under federal authority.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, IPOB warned that the planned cattle ranches around Abuja, ancestral homeland of the Gbagi people, constitute an “assault on indigenous land rights” and represent a broader agenda of “Fulani expansionism.”
“This latest ploy is nothing but RUGA repackaged, a sinister land-grabbing strategy cloaked in government policy, designed to reward killers and entrench Fulani imperial expansionism in the heart of Nigeria,” IPOB said in the statement.
The group drew a historical parallel with the 19th-century Fulani jihad, which resulted in the subjugation of Hausa kingdoms and the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate.