Fulani herdsmen: Group declares 3-day cleansing of Yorubaland

A Yoruba socio-cultural group, Agbekoya reformed society (ARS) has announced a three day Oro festival to be conducted all over Yorubaland.

They said this was to cleanse the Yoruba territory from incursion of Fulani herdsmen and fish out any threat lurking within the Yorubaland.

The group in a press statement issued weekend, signed by Aare Agbekoya, Chief Adekunle Oshodi, noted that the need to cleanse the land became necessary due to the violent behaviour of Fulani herdsmen.

Oshodi declared that, “The Fulani came with their nomadic half, who traditionally reared cattle with sticks and staffs, and succeeded in permeating into local communities all over the federation, pre and post-independence. Initially looking harmless and unobtrusive within their host communities, they have since metamorphosed into AK 47 gun wielding terrorists conducting an offensive campaign of calumny and destruction all over the country.”

He said that the group had been watching the events in Nigeria, noting that the need to defend the territory arose due to the fact that, “the government of the day has clearly and obviously failed to offer protection to our people in the urban and rural areas.”

Oshodi while calling on its members, farmers, hunters, traditionalists and Yoruba ancestral security outfits to commence the total and uncompromising protection of all parts of Yorubaland, from Kwara to Kogi, Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti remarked that, “Our bushes and forests, farmlands and settlements hereby remain impervious and sealed to Fulani marauders, arsonists and murderous gangs. A three day Oro festival will be conducted all over Yorubaland on an unannounced date to cleanse our land of terror and fish out any threats lurking within our boarders”.

Oshodi said that he was surprised that the government of the day was supporting cattle rearing which was a private business dominated by certain ethnic group at the expense of other occupations such as farming and fishing.

He said since the government had never supported farmers with forcibly acquired land to farm in other people’s communes, neither had government ever seized rivers upcountry for fishermen down south to fish in northern rivers, it was patently wrong and wholly suspicious when a subsisting government chose a particular private trade (cattle rearing), mostly conducted by a particular ethnic group (the Fulani) for favour over and above the interests, businesses and lives of other Nigerians.

“Cattle rearing is private business. As government had never supported farmers with forcibly acquired land to farm in other peoples communes, neither had government ever seized rivers upcountry for fishermen down south to fish in northern rivers. Thus, it is patently wrong and wholly suspicious when a subsisting government chooses a particular private trade (cattle rearing), mostly conducted by a particular ethnic group (the Fulani) for favour over and above the interests, businesses and lives of other Nigerians.

“The grazing bill, as crafted by its sponsors, is arrogantly malevolent in content and impetuously contemptuous, in character, of other people’s interests and concerns. In the darkest parts of hell from where it was horribly construed, it shall remain, because it is mortally flawed, morally insensitive and forever unworkable.

“Agbekoya hereby issues a clear and present warning to the Fulani backed federal government that all this nonsense must stop and end forthwith. Agbekoya now calls out all its members; farmers, hunters, traditionalists and Yoruba ancestral security outfits to commence the total and uncompromising protection of all parts of Yorubaland, from Kwara to Kogi, Lagos to Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti. All Yoruba sons and daughters, villages, communities and farmers under threat are to report to their local community heads and chiefs for links to Agbekoya traditionalists and ancestral security units in their locality. We are everywhere! Any threat or harm inflicted on any Yoruba is a challenge to Agbekoya, and it will be resolutely met with”, he vowed.