By Tosin Olatokunbo
Prominent Individuals, groups mostly from the southern part of Nigeria have not relented in their efforts to shoot down the Water Resources Bill currently before the National Assembly, considered to be the reintroduction of the Rural Grazing Area, RUGA earlier rejected by many Nigerians.
Opposition to the bill has mounted in the last few days, with Professor Wole Soyinka, Afenifere, Ohaneze Ndigbo’s Middle Belt Forum, insisting that the Bill is a land grabbing ploy by the federal government.
Soyinka said the Bill had been roundly rejected two years ago and must not be brought back.
He said “A roundly condemned project blasted out of sight by public outrage one or two years ago is being exhumed and sneaked back into service by none other than a failed government, and with the consent of a body of people, supposedly elected to serve as custodians of the rights, freedoms and existential exigencies of millions. This bill – Bill on National Water resources 2020 – is designed to hand Aso Rock absolute control over the nation’s entire water resources, both over and underground.”
Those opposed to the bill believe that it’s another ploy on the part of the federal government to forcefully take lands belonging to states through the back door.
It will also remove the powers conferred on state governors by the Land Use Act to control lands under their jurisdiction.
The major suspicion is that the Buhari administration is trying to provide, Fulani pastoralists unhindered access to grazing lands across the country, in a similar manner it wanted to foist RUGA on Nigerians, but was vehemently rejected.
Governor Ortom described the Water Resources Bill as a “disguised land-grabbing legislation designed to grant pastoralists unhindered access to river basins, adjacent marine and coastal environments across the country.”
According to the governor “the bill, in addition to its provisions which are at variance with the Land Use Act, is a disguised land-grabbing legislation designed to grant pastoralists unhindered access to river basins, adjacent marine and coastal environments across the country.”
He said this is another “version of Ruga, whose objective is to create grazing areas in the 36 states of the federation for herders and their livestock, urging “the federal lawmakers to act as true representatives of the people for the sake of posterity, and to remember that the destiny of the country lies in their hands.”
Also a co-spokesman of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, SMBLF, Yinka Odumakin, in an interview with The PUNCH, warned “Freedom-loving Nigerians should be ready for protracted resistance to this move to grab land around waterways for Miyetti Allah by the executive arm of the government.”
While the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation said it will go to court to seek redress if the bill is passed by the National Assembly.
The National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga who spoke with one of correspondents, said that “It is a tinder box that must certainly explode if they choose to embark on such a precipitous peregrination”.
Prince Achi-Okpaga said, “There is no gain saying that the implication is as envisaged that the Federal Government will acquire the water ways from the people and keep the same at the disposal of unwelcome visitors or aliens; a clear, unfair and natural case of robbing Peter to pay Paul
Meanwhile, the outbursts against the new bill came at the same time, Governor Ortom read the riots act to Miyetti Allah, the umbrella body of Fulani Herdesmen in the country, to drop their plans to establish vigilante group in Benue state.
The governor warned that any Fulani vigilante found in his state will be arrested and punished.
