TheCable

The Okun Development Association (ODA) has asked the federal government not to establish cattle colonies in any part of the six local government areas of Kogi state, where its people are.

The people, spread across Kabba-Bunu, Ijumu, Lokoja, Yagba-west, Yagba-east and Mopamuro, arrived at the decision after an emergency national congress held over the weekend.

In a statement by Femi Mokikan, ODA national chairman and Ayo Abereoran, its national secretary, the group described the initiative as “distasteful, dangerous”, saying it has a huge potential to snowball into a major national disaster”.

ODA said the cattle colony concept is a disservice to the people’s past, present and future and was as such unacceptable.

They said any proposal to appropriate their land for the promotion of the private business interests of herdsmen would deny them their right to their ancestral land and would “amount to an avoidable time bomb”.

The state government had announced its readiness to embrace the new policy and volunteered to pioneer the model.

However, ODA rejected the government’s position, saying it is not in the best interest of the Okun people.

ODA said most of the herdsmen in Okunland had launched attacks on their hosts, adding that Okun farmers had almost abandoned farming for fear of attacks by herders.