Some aggrieved youths under the aegis of the Iganga Development Advocates in Ibarapa area of Oyo State, on Tuesday petitioned Governor Seyi Makinde and the Commissioner of Police, Oyo State Police Command, Nwachukwu Enwonwu, on the incessant attacks and killing of residents of the zone.
The youths, in conjunction with some concerned stakeholders in Ibarapa held a peaceful rally at the Oyo State Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan. They called the state government and the Police to rise to their aid in a bid to end the violence by the killer herdsmen in the area.
The protesters asked the government to implement the state’s Anti-grazing bill and deploy the Amotekun Corps into Igangan, Ibarapa zone and the state at large.
The youths made reference to the killing of a popular farmer, Fatai Aborode, a PHD holder from the University of Aberdeen, last Friday while returning from his farm with his farm manager.
Wale Oladokun, President of IDA, who disclosed that Igangan is an agrarian community, stated that it is sad that farmers could no longer go to their farms because of the fear of the rage of the Fulani herdsmen who go about killing the people at will. He urged the state government to address the problem before the residents are forced to result to self help.
Oladokun, in a letter to the governor, dated December 7, noted that in November, a farmer was attacked by herdsmen with swords while working on his farm in Igangan.
It read, “The farmer sustained multiple sword injuries. He managed to escape being murdered. Another young farmer’s hand was almost completely severed from his wrist from the strokes of sword on him right on his farm by the blood-thirsty marauding herders.
“One Olajide Odeyemi was rounded up in his house in Igangan by the Fulani marauders, they kidnapped Olajide while trying to escape from the claws of his abductors and he ended up sustaining a life threatening head injury.”
A petition written to the police read in parts, “Before now, the burning issue of Fulani herders violent attacks on farmers, rural dwellers and indigenes of Igangan has been on for some years now while many Igangan indigenes have suffered fatal attacks, rape and kidnapping by the herders. The killing of Dr Aborode is the height of the tragedy masterminded by herders.
*It is the IDA’s resolve to bring this incessant killings, via a peaceful protest, to the knowledge of not just the media but the government across all levels and the whole wide world to see and understand the bloody experience we are being exposed to on a daily basis in the hands of the herders which has crippled the community’s economy and well being and sent indelible marks of misfortune and loss to families.”
The Deputy Governor, Rauf Olaniyan, who described the late Fatai Aborode as a dear friend, pledged government’s readiness to look into their demands and urged them to be law abiding.
