Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Cattle colony, a colonisation agenda of northern oligarchy, says Nwabueze

By Bertram Nwannekanma
26 January 2018   |   3:20 am
Elder statesman and Chairman of the Southern Leaders of Thought (SLT), Professor Benjamin Nwabueze, says the proposed cattle colony of the Federal Government is part of colonialisation agenda of the northern oligarchy. In his third article on the state of the nation, the renowned constitutional lawyer said: “To us here in Nigeria, a colony is…

Benjamin Obiefuna Nwabueze

Elder statesman and Chairman of the Southern Leaders of Thought (SLT), Professor Benjamin Nwabueze, says the proposed cattle colony of the Federal Government is part of colonialisation agenda of the northern oligarchy.

In his third article on the state of the nation, the renowned constitutional lawyer said: “To us here in Nigeria, a colony is nothing new. The colony of Lagos, established by the British in 1861, has familiarised us to it”.
 
Urging President Muhammadu Buhari not to lure the citizenry into the ‘deadly trap of establishing cattle colonies for herdsmen in every state of the federation’, he noted that a colony of any type and in all periods of history and a settlement were inseparable.
   
According to the revered lawyer, the idea underlying a colony, both in antiquity and modern times, was that of settlement as witnessed in the British Settlements Act 1887 which stipulates that a colony is a place for the settlement of people “with common or similar language, interests or occupations, living together in close association like the farm settlements established in some parts of the eastern region by the government of Michael .I. Okpara.

His words: “But our acquaintance with it goes much further back to the ancient colonies established in seventh century by the Greeks on the Mediterranean coastline of Italy, France and Spain, which Nice, Marseille and Naples are notable examples.
 
“A colony, as a settlement for people, is one integrated idea. It cannot be separated from a settlement. It cannot meaningfully exist divorced from such a settlement, except as a mere idea without existential content.”

0 Comments