The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang, has said that whether anyone liked it or not, RUGA has come to stay as the sum of N2.2 billion has already been budgeted for the programme in 2019.
He advised states in the southern part of the country to support the implementation of the proposed RUGA cattle settlement programme by making land available.
Ita Enang, who was speaking today, August 4 in Abuja, to students of the law school from Akwa Ibom, said that Ruga is not a derivative of Hausa or Fulfude, but an acronym for Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) which was initiated in 1956 during the colonial era, and that it is not intended to Islamise or colonise anybody.
Ita Enang cited the 2019 federal budget, volume 1 under the ministry of agricultural and rural development item number ERGP 5208 where the sum of N2.258 billion was provided for the grazing programme.
He said that members of the national assembly were not against the programme because they were aware of it and had approved funds for its implementation.
He said that besides funds provided for the programme, the sum of N300 million was also budgeted for water sanitation; N400 million for development of sweet potatoes and N350 million for ginger farming.
Ita Enang said the objective of the programme is to promote cattle breeding and meat production.
He said that there was another sum approved by the national economic council for states that would make land available.
“The idea of Ruga graduated in 1978 into the Land Use Act which states that a portion of land has to be reserved for grazing to avoid the destruction of farm produce by cattle,” he said.
“Over time cattle roamed and destroyed farms hence the introduction of the policy to address the issue.’’
He also said every year there have been monetary allocations for the continuous funding of grazing areas.
He added that the programme was a response to the herder-farmer crisis in the middle-belt and in some states in northeast and northwest.
