Connect with us

Politics

Revealed! 46 died in Hausa-Yoruba clash in Ile-Ife (Updated)

Published

on

Revealed! 46 died in Hausa-Yoruba clash in Ile-Ife

After about two weeks of the deadly communal clash involving the Hausa people and the Yoruba in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigerian Police Force (NPF) has finally revealed that 46 people lost their lives in the clash.

This was made known by the police Public Relations Officer (PRO), CSP Jimoh Moshood, during a press briefing in Abuja on Monday.

According to the police PRO, the March 8 clash, saw the two warring sides use knives and axes against each other, leading to killings of the victims.

While parading 20 people who are among others arrested in connection with the clash, Moshood said that about 96 people were taken to Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital for treatment as a result of the clash.

“The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, deployed Police Special Intervention Force, comprising five units of the Police Mobile Force, five Cells of Counter Terrorism Unit, Conventional Policemen, Special Anti -Robbery Squad, Intelligence Response Team, Technical Intelligence Unit, SIB, detachment of EOD and Police K9 (Sniffer Dogs Section), with their Headquarters in Ile-Ife, led by the Commissioner of Police in charge of PMF, Force Headquarters, Abuja.

Read also: 15-yr-old sells 3-yr-old for N500 to Alfa for money ritual

“The operation covered the entire Ile-Ife and environs, and other flash/trouble spots in Osun State, and was successfully executed leading to the arrest, detention and investigation of 38 suspects out of which 20 suspects were found culpable for direct and indirect participation in the killing of innocent people, maiming and destruction of properties of the victims worth millions of naira.

“They will be prosecuted on completion of investigation. The remaining 18 suspects have been released unconditionally for lack of prima facie evidence against them,” Moshood said.

Among the 20 suspects paraded by the police include Adelekan Kehinde, Elufisan Akintoye, Omisanmi Isaac, Olarewaju Daniel, Seyi Akinyombo, Adejube Monday, Olarewaju Adebayo, Akanbi Adeyinka, Obimakinde Samuel, Alhaji Zakariyau Abdulyekini.

Initial reports put the number of casualties resulting from the clash at five, seven and 10, before the police finally came up with 46 as the casualty number.

Meanwhile, pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, through its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, has frowned at the arrest and parade of the suspects allegedly involved in the riot at Ile-Ife, questioning why no Hausa/Fulani person was arrested.

Odumakin in an interview in Abuja, said the parade of the suspects in Abuja showed “undue sectional deployment of federal might.

Vowing to resist what it termed ethnic vengeance, Afenifere wondered why the police will parade the “so-called suspects in Abuja, hundreds of miles away from the scene of the conflict,” when the right place to investigate the incident should have been Osun State

“The Abuja show is undue sectional deployment of federal might to intimidate and harass a party in the conflict. It is direct fallout of the threat of the Interior Minister (Abdulrahaman Danbazzau) after he visited Ife.

“The minister is not on record to have visited any scene of conflict where Fulani herdsmen have inflicted ‘massacres’ on their host communities in the Southern and Middle Belt communities since he was appointed.

“The Ife crisis was sparked by the beheading of a Yoruba vulcaniser and the subsequent parade of his severed head on a pole. How come there is no member of the Arewa community paraded by the police?

“We reject the one-eyed Magistrate that the police have become in this matter and which is as a result of the ethnic composition of the police presently. We demand the immediate transfer of the suspects to Osun state. We will resist this ethnic vengeance through the police except we see arrests of the Fulani aggressors in the Ife conflict, Odumakin declared.

 

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Click here to download the Ripples Nigeria App for latest updates

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now

Click to comment

0 Comments

  1. Norbert Okafor

    March 21, 2017 at 8:44 am

    i love what is happening to the yorubas. it is a case of the proverbial chicken who who was laughing while his fellow chicken was been slaughtered on a sunday. when arrests where made in kano over the beheading of an igbo woman and the susupects later released afenifere said nothing. we shall adopt a siddon look approach. period

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

19 − ten =