Oyo State Government Chief Press Secretary Taiwo Adisa condemns the strategy of self-proclaimed freedom fighters of the Yoruba people, Sunday Igboho.
According to Adisa, Sunday’s fighting bandit’s attack and the seeming insecurity in the South-Western part of Nigeria cannot work. Hence it’s not a welcome development.
The herder’s fighter had issued a seven-day quit notice to herders who have been accused of rape, farmland destruction, kidnapping, and other crimes in the Ibarapa area of Oyo state.
Sunday had also threatened herdsmen who have been accused of terrorizing the farmers and residents of Yewa in Ogun state.
Igboho justifies his actions on the herdsmen as they have been alleged attacks from the herdsmen who have killed and injured some members of the communities stated above.
However, on Thursday, Taiwo said the state does not have anything against Sunday Igboho except that his methods of solving the security challenges in the state cannot be adopted because of the foreseen repercussions.
Adisa made this revelation at a virtual town hall meeting with International Alliance for Justice and Peace, a civil society organization based in the Diaspora but with interest in Nigeria.
Commenting on the topic, ‘Fulani Herdsmen’s Violent Rampage In Ibarapa: What Is The True Situation?’, the Chief Press Secretary explained that the state is not in any competition with Igboho.
“The state is not in any competition with Sunday Igboho. The problem is about strategy; the strategy that he came up with cannot work in this environment because if you go shouting to people of other ethnic stocks to leave your community, the danger there is that your own people who are also in their different communities, the other people will unleash terror on them.
“So, it is tact that is necessary to rid our communities of criminals,” he said.
He further reveals that the state would continue to deploy state and non-state actors to expunge the states of criminal miscreants.
“As to the use of non-state actors, in our own clime here, there is no state that can survive without non-state actors’ involvement in security. It is not possible because the police will not be enough; no matter how small your community is, the federal police cannot be enough. So, you’ve got to link up with Vigilante Services of Nigeria; even some communities link up with OPC (Oodua Peoples Congress), some communities link up with traditional hunters, and so on.
“In Oyo State, for instance, this is not the first time we are witnesses some form of crisis, but the first time it happened, nobody really heard about it other than an alarm that was raised by the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Aare Gani Adams, that some people are infiltrating Oyo forests and they are trying to attack the state.
“As to the use of non-state actors, in our own clime here, there is no state that can survive without non-state actors’ involvement in security. It is not possible because the police will not be enough; no matter how small your community is, the federal police cannot be enough. So, you’ve got to link up with Vigilante Services of Nigeria; even some communities link up with OPC (Oodua Peoples Congress), some communities link up with traditional hunters, and so on.
“In Oyo State, for instance, this is not the first time we are witnesses some form of crisis, but the first time it happened, nobody really heard about it other than an alarm that was raised by the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Aare Gani Adams, that some people are infiltrating Oyo forests and they are trying to attack the state.”