*Federal Govt advised on way out
According to Tribune, at least one person died while several others sustained varying degrees of injuries during the intercommunal clashes that also reportedly saw vehicles vandalized, kiosks, shops razed, houses pelted and various other structures destroyed.
In effort of The DEFENDER to know the remote and immediate causes of the crisis, it was blamed on existing ethnic profiling that has set the host communities of Yoruba against Hausa-Fulani residents of particularly Oyo and other parts of Yoruba Land and Southern Nigeria, which led to inability of people to now tolerate one another, especially in the Ibadan fresh intercommunal clash.
A Yoruba source in Ibadan told The DEFNDER via electronic message that: “It is difficult to get the exact picture of what happened sincerely because many interpreters used their tribal bias to interpret it. But what is undeniable is that a misunderstanding occurred between a Yoruba woman and an Hausa man that led to altercations and the incitements of the current security situations and profiling blew it out of proportions.
“Many journalists are part of the problems, many of them are not objective in their analysis, they will input their bias into the whole events and that alone will compromise their aim of fair and balanced reportage,” he said.
Another source had earlier told us on Saturday that, “A Yoruba tested Juju on one Hausa man but the Juju did not catch the Hausa man. However, the Hausa man tested his own Juju on the Yoruba man in retaliation and it caught him down and was rushed to the hospital only for him to now die Friday morning. On hearing the news of his death, the Yoruba ones went rampage killing any Hausa on sight killing two Hausa sellers of carrot. The other Hausa thereafter mobilised themselves and set houses in the area ablaze and went to where their cows and markets were to protect them and challenged the Yoruba attackers to come forward and kill their cows and destroy their markets if they would have the power to do. That was the point they were when security people arrived to arrest the situation,” our source told The DEFENDER on Saturday.
Our sources appear to be the background leading to the Tribune account that an incident on Thursday served as a precursor to Friday’s clash when a Hausa man had altercations with a pregnant woman in front of her shop.
“The man, it said, was conveying tomatoes, but on getting to the front of the pregnant woman’s shop, it upturned and fell. This drew the ire of the pregnant woman when he picked the good ones and left the spoilt ones on the ground.
“The pregnant woman accosted the man and insisted that he should pack the remaining tomatoes on the ground, but the man refused. An altercation had ensued with the woman insisting that the man should pack all that was poured in front of her shop.
“A shoemaker Sakirundeen Adeola alias Korex had intervened to separate the two only to be hit by the Hausa man and started foaming. The shoemaker was rushed to the hospital only to be confirmed dead later on Thursday. To avenge the death of one their own, some Yorubas had on Friday blocked the entry of truckload of tomatoes, driven by Hausas, into Sasha market leading to a clash,” the media report said.
In his account of what led to the clash, Tribune said, a resident of Shasha, Kola Ridwan said, “A shoemaker, Sakirundeen Adeola, who was watching the altercation between the Hausa man and the pregnant woman, left his shop and went to meet the two of them with a view to resolving the crisis.
“Sakirudeen insisted no matter what, the man should not litter the frontage of the woman’s shop. The man got angry and gave the shoemaker a deadly blow. The shoemaker fell and hit his head against a stone. I was told.
“The shoemaker was rushed to the hospital and he died this morning (Friday). This got the friends and family members of the deceased angry and they mobilised to retaliate. The man is from Niger Republic and lives among the Hausa community. Then, the Hausa also mobilised to fight.
“I can confirm to you that no fewer than seven trucks have been vandalised and looted. Also, many houses have been burnt.
“The Hausa have been mobilising from Akinyele to Shasha and the arson has continued in Shasha. If care is not taken, the crisis may degenerate to an unimaginable level.”
The Deputy Director, Oyo State Fire Service, Mr Moshood Adewuyi, who confirmed the incident, said that the fire brigade was not allowed to put out the fire as hoodlums descended heavily on them and their facilities.
Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer for the state, Olugbenga Fadeyi, said: “It was a clash between two social miscreants in which one of the miscreant, Adeola Sakirundeen, was hit by the other and died later while receiving treatment in a hospital.
“Massive police deployment and that of the sister security agencies were made to dowse tension. Critical stakeholders have also been consulted to appeal to the people. Normalcy is gradually returning to the area,” Fadeyi said.
He added that the Commissioner of Police in the state, Mrs Ngozi Onadeko; Special Adviser to Governor Seyi Makinde on Security, Mr Fatai Owoseni, and other police tactical teams had visited the scene for on the spot assessment.
Advice to Federal Government
Some opinion molders in the country have been able to trace what is happening now to inability of government to take immediate actions nipping crisis in the bud before it escalates. They believe that some of the silence and slowness of the government and security agencies to take action over criminal and other security issues cause the degeneration of issues into ethnic and religious discord in the land.
One of them said: “I have sympathy for President Muhammadu Buhari and I believe in his ability to study and carefully take his time before acting. However, I want to say that his silence and slowness over certain issues, when some people regardless of their status cause trouble, have been misunderstood by many Nigerians, especially those who already have tendency of using political game to create ethnic and religious crisis in the land.
“Get me right. What I am saying is that, first and foremost, President Buhari should not have created impression that he had difficulty deciding succession plan for any of his security chiefs or heads of parastatals. People graduate from institutions to develop not to be retarded. Anyway, with the acceptance of the service chiefs’ retirement recently, things are already taking shapes but what about parastatals and agencies?
“Why is it taking the President having to drag his feet on decisions that people would have read ethnic and religious sentiment to his doing so before he acts? Why should security agencies drag their feet before they move into the bushes despite the cries of the people?
“Sincerely speaking, what people of South West and South East have cried about is correct but not really as they claim Fulani wanting to take their land. Many Yoruba are criminals in those same bushes just as you have Fulani and Igbo criminals kidnapping, raping and killing people.
“Truth is that, it is not different from what has been happening to the people of the North; the North East, North West and North Central. But it becomes problem here because security agents were seen as not responding to the cries of the people and, in the case of South West, they see it as because the attackers are Fulani whereas, the Fulani of Nigeria do not have the culture or features of the people killing and raping their people.
“Fulani have been with us here in Yoruba Land for over a century now and they are peaceful, easy going people. Many of them canot go to anywhere else because where they know as their town and birth place is Yoruba Land. Their economies, commerce and investments are all here in Yoruba Land. So, does it make sense to say Fulani should quit? How many of the times there is crisis in the South West when Hausa are killed have you heard reprisal in Kano any longer? It does not happen again, unlike before, because even in the North, they have come to realise the rights of Nigerians to live in peace together anywhere regardless of the senselessness of Nnamdi Kanu and some Igbo leaders who are backing him.
“How can you therefore say Fulani, who have cows, would want to cause trouble or commit crimes? It is not possible because they prefer to be in peace rearing their cows although the life of Fulani is not only about cows as against the wrong impression that we in the South carry around about them. Fulani are also in the other aspects of agricultural system and are in the professional such as law, accountancy, military, police, medicine, the ICT etc. Cows rearing is only more unique to them.
“Many non-Fulani are in the cows ownership but employ Fulani to rear for them. Where then is our issue? It is the government that must show capacity and competence to provide security for the people. But if the government and its security agencies have been pro-active enough, the problem of ethnicity and religion being read to the situation will stop,” he said.
