Olufemi Atoyebi, Kamarudeen Ogundele, Eniola Akinkuotu, and Toluwani Eniola
A pan-Yoruba group, Oodua People’s
Congress, has given the Federal Government and the Nigeria Police Force
48 hours to arrest the Fulani/Hausa persons involved in the crisis in
Ile-Ife, Osun State, which resulted in the death of about 46 persons.
The OPC gave the warning in a statement by its founder, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, on Thursday.
It said, “We hereby call on the Federal
Government to intervene within the next 48 hours to ensure that justice
is institutionalised and no side is provoked to defend justice according
to its whims and caprices. Various communities have Abraham as their
father. A word is enough for the wise.”
The group said it was unfortunate that
20 Yoruba persons, including a monarch, were arrested and paraded by the
police while not a single Hausa/Fulani belligerent was detained.
The OPC added, “The police and the
Federal Government appear determined to make scapegoats of Yoruba living
in Ife over this crisis. It is unfortunate, strange and insensitive
that two people are fighting and authorities are arresting only one
party in this unfortunate mayhem.
“We sympathise with all victims and
casualties over this moment of madness that has eroded two centuries of
harmonious cohabitation between the Hausa settlers and their Yoruba
hosts. But we demand equal treatment of everyone involved on both sides
of this crisis.”
The group questioned the role of a former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, in the arrest of the 20 persons.
It said Kwankwaso stampeded Governor Rauf Argebesola of Osun State and the Commissioner of Police into the ‘senseless’ arrests.
According to the OPC, Kwankwaso’s role
is reminiscent of the role played by President Muhammadu Buhari in the
Yoruba/Fulani clash in Ibadan in 2000.
“Kwankwanso’s post-violence role in Ife
is akin to that played by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari who in October 2000
travelled to Ibadan to challenge the late governor Lam Adesina over the
reprisal on Fulani herdsmen who had unleashed an orgy of raping and
killings on Yoruba farming communities.
“This kind of bias will only embolden
belligerent Hausa-Fulani throughout Nigeria and give them pariah status
amongst other nationalities,” the OPC warned.
The OPC decried the failure of the
police and the Federal Government to dislodge Fulani herdsmen who had
since 2016 invaded and occupied the Agatu and Oturkpo communities in
Benue State and parts of Enugu State.
“Where are those Hausa-Fulani who went
on a killing spree in Southern Kaduna, Agatu and Chief Olu Falae’s farm?
Are they untouchable? The Federal Government and the police should stop
behaving as if Nigeria is the Hausa-Fulani’s conquered territory where
they can kill and maim and rape at will,” the OPC.
Also, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele
Fayose, and the Gani Adams’ faction of the OPC have cautioned the
police over the handling of investigation on the crisis in Ile-Ife.
In separate statements, they accused the
police of displaying ethnic bias in their investigation, noting that
this is not good for the unity of Nigeria and its people.
The governor, who condemned the killing
of innocent people and destruction of properties in Ile-Ife, said crime
must be treated as crime; “whether committed by Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa or
any tribe. However, handling of crime must be without ethnic bias,” he
added.
Fayose said it was “strange that in a
clash involving the people of Ile-Ife, who are Yoruba and Hausa, who are
settlers in the ancient town, only Yoruba were arrested, taken to Abuja
and paraded before the press.”
The governor, in a statement issued in
Ado Ekiti on Thursday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications
and New Media, Lere Olayinka, condemned the mayhem and described the
loss of innocent souls as unfortunate.
The statement said, “If there was a
clash between Yoruba people and Hausa in Ile-Ife, are the police now
saying that only the Yoruba took part in the crisis?
“Both Yoruba and Hausa were attacked.
Properties belonging to both Yoruba and Hausa were destroyed. Are the
police saying that those 20 Yoruba that they paraded in Abuja were the
ones who attacked the Yoruba people that were also victims of the crisis
and destroyed those houses belonging to the indigenes of Ile-Ife that
were destroyed?
“In my own opinion, the investigation so
far conducted by the police was done with ethnic bias and I demand a
thorough investigation that is devoid of ethnic sentiments.
“Also, to prevent a recurrence of such
crisis, I call on the Osun State Government to set up a judicial panel
of inquiry to ascertain the remote and immediate causes of the crisis,
as well as identify the masterminds of the crisis.”
Also, the OPC has criticised the Nigeria
Police Force for conducting what it described as a subjective
investigation into the March 8 crisis in IIe-Ife.
The OPC in a statement by Adams on
Thursday, said it wondered why those who triggered the violence had not
been paraded by the police.
The group described the entire investigation as “lopsided, highly bias and possesses an element of foundation of injustice.”
Meanwhile, son of the governor of the
old Ondo State, Adekunle Ajasin, Tokunbo, has decried Yoruba monarch’s
silence after the police paraded only Yoruba people in the aftermath of
the crisis between Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani in Ile-Ife.
Ajasin, who spoke in Ibadan on Thursday, is the founder of Atayese Federalist Movement, a Yoruba socio-cultural group.
Ajasin, who chided the police for
showing bias against the Yoruba people in the arrest of suspects, said
he was shocked and surprised that Yoruba monarchs had not risen to
defend their people in the face of persecution. He described the police
action as treachery against Yoruba nation.
He added, “…We are surprised that none
of our traditional rulers said anything even when one of them was
arrested along with the suspects. That is sacrilegious.”
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