Igangan residents give reasons for attack on Fulani settlement

There were efforts at restoring peace to the Igangan community in the Ibrapa area of Oyo after a meeting of the state government, police authorities, residents and fulani leaders on Sunday in Igangan.

Residents of the community, during the meeting presented evidence and recounted their ordeals in the hands of Fulani herdsmen.

The community leaders while speaking during the meeting, said that they had paid a total of N50m as ransoms for kidnappings carried out by herdsmen in the community.

The community also presented to the delegation, pictures and other evidence of ransoms paid to the herdsmen, while also accusing the Seriki Fulani, Salihu Abdukadir of complicity in the negotiation of ransoms.

According to a statement on Sunday by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Taiwo Adisa, the delegation comprised of officials of the state and the new Commissioner of Police in the state Command, Mrs Ngozi Onadeko.

Violence erupted in Igangan on Friday when a Yoruba freedom fighter, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, alongside his followers, stormed the Fulani settlement in the town to eject the Seriki Fulani and herdsmen accused of perpetrating crimes ranging from kidnappings, killings, rape to invasion of farmlands with their cattle.

This led to the ejection of the Abdukadir and his family and the touching of his properties.

Adisa further stated that the community leaders told the delegation that aside the N50 million ransom payments, 15 women were raped by the herders in the town.

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However, Fulani leaders, who attended the meeting, begged for forgiveness, saying the Fulani were ready for peaceful co-existence with their hosts.

In his own submission at the meeting, the Secretary of Igangan Development Advocates, Lawal Akeem, said the people were tired of the antics of the Seriki Fulani of Igangan, whom he accused of complicity in different kidnap cases.

He also said that the community had been forced to pay about N50 million in ransoms for different cases of kidnapping, while also accusing Fulani herders of regularly vandalising farms and raping women of the community.

On his part, a member of the state House of Assembly, Peter Ojedokun, also told the delegation that the peace in Ibarapaland had been stirred by the Fulani herders with the incessant attacks on members of the community, kidnappings and other crimes, while the Caretaker Chairman of Ibarapa North-West Local Council Development Area, Okediji Olusegun, also corroborated the allegations levelled against the Seriki Fulani of Igangan, saying that the Seriki had been fingered in series of security challenges in the area many times.

Two Fulani leaders who attended the meeting, the Seriki Fulani of Igbo Ora, Alhaji Idris Abubakar, and the Seriki Fulani of Eruwa, Alhaji Sule Mohammed, asked for forgiveness, assuring the forum that they would facilitate peaceful coexistence in Ibarapaland.

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