OWO MASSACRE: Afenifere slams Nigerian govt for monopolizing security

The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, on Sunday condemned the attack on a church in Ondo State.

Unknown gunmen on Sunday morning attacked the St Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State and killed scores of worshippers.

In a statement issued by its spokesman, Sola Ebiseni, the group accused the Federal Government of monopolising security architecture in the country.

It added that the attack was launched to challenge the self-defense capacity of Yoruba people.

The statement read: “The horrendous incident at the St. Francis Catholic Church in the ancient Yoruba city of Owo, Ondo State, where scores of worshippers were killed by herdsmen wielding most sophisticated weapons is not just an attack on the Church and the psyche of all decent people all over the world but a deliberate show at testing the self-defence strength of the Yoruba people in resisting the importation of the horrible culture of violence into our land.

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“St. Francis Catholic Church, the site of this inhuman carnage, is not only at the heart of Owo, but in fact sandwiched between the Oba Market and the Palace of the Olowo of Owo, an ancient Yoruba monarchical heritage, long declared a national monument, and epicentre of human civilisation. It is an attack on our traditional economy typified by an Oja Oba and the enduring political culture rated even by colonialists as of immemorial global significance.

“We observe that this attack is coming less than a week after the Methodist Prelate was kidnapped by herdsmen and was only ransomed with the huge sum of One Hundred Million Naira with the respected clergy alluding to the complicity of the nation’s security forces in tandem with the earlier allegation by Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, a former Chief of Staff of the Nigerian Army.

“In all of these, the Federal Government of Nigeria, which against federal precepts, continues to monopolise security and its architecture, has proven most helpless and irresponsible in securing life and property, an irrefutable sign of the failure of the Nigerian State.”

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