By KEMI KASUMU
“Again, it is interesting to know and tell you that even notable Fulani leaders acknowledge that there are criminals in all communities of humanity and that Fulani is not exempted. How many of our Yoruba, Igbo people of the South have made similar acknowledgement of the criminals among their own tribes? To an average Yoruba man, Davidoo, Awawa, other cultists, ritualists, killer thugs and varied armed robbery criminals can be tolerated so long they are Yoruba. The moment a Hausa-Fulani is found on the list, we and media pretending to work for the protection of Yoruba nation play less on our own criminals but hype the single Hausa-Fulani in the list. Those of us who do this are at war with God. Fulani in the North too have their own sufferings. Those you claim want to take your Yoruba Land now are the cattle wrostlers killing them and stealing their cows. Where is your fear of God?” He asked with sound of warning.
Goveror of Oyo State, Engr. Seyi Makinde, on Saturday February 20, 2021, declared that herdsmen were not responsible for the killing of Dr. Fatai Aborode.
It will be recalled that Aborode, a former House of Representatives candidate, was last year killed in Igangan, a town in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of the state by yet to be identified persons.
The killing and other killings, kidnapping and attacks in Ibarapa geopolitical zone have been blamed on Fulani herdsmen as a result of which Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a. Sunday Igboho has declared ethnic war against the Fulani asking them to leave Oyo State and, by extension, Yoruba Land.
Although criminals arrested so far across South West and other part of the South cut across the tribes, ethnic profiling by many Southerners blaming Fulani for kidnappings and killings in the part of the downside of Nigeria has been widely condemned, in the face of arrests being made by police and which revealed that many of those kidnappings and killings were actually not by people of Fulanisation tendency as implied by Sunday Igboho and projected by Ngbati Press.
The DEFENDER reports that kidnapping of Ekiti oil and gas magnate Sulaiman Akinbami and United States of America-based Prince Dennis Abuda along with three other victims in Benin City before he was killed by his kidnappers had been blamed on Fulani herdsmen thereby causing serious ethnic clashes in particularly Shasha Ibadan, Oyo State over simple matter.
The impression created by Igbo and others was that Fulani, whose herdership among communities in the region has come of age, had invaded bushes of Yoruba Land to take over their land.
But, speaking after his regaining freedom from the kidnappers’ den, the Ekiti oil dealer revealed that his kidnappers were Yoruba people and suspects arrested by police in Edo State with connection to Prince Dennis Abuda kidnap and death and others turned out to be non-Fulani criminals but people of Edo State origin.
Last Saturday, a yet another revelation vindicating the Fulani by Governor of Oyo State Seyi Makinde further vindicated and proved the Fulani’s peaceful mindedness with their host communities when he declared that Fulani herdsmen were not responsible for the killing of the PDP chieftain.
Makinde, who spoke on Saturday morning during a programme on the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State (BCOS) monitored by a digital media (not The DEFENDER), said, ”Aborode’s killing is political.”
Makinde, who noted his interaction with the father of the deceased, insisted that the killing was “political”.
The governor claimed that he spent a night in Ibarapa zone recently, adding that he interacted with the father of the deceased, who revealed that the death of his son was political.
He added that all the people involved in the killing would be investigated.
Makinde said, “I was the coordinator for PDP in Ibadan North East when Dr. Aborode was the coordinator for PDP in Ibarapa North Local Government Area when we returned to PDP.
“Dr. Aborode is not someone who is far from me. I am not saying that there are no bad eggs among the Fulani herdsmen, but, they are not the ones responsible for the killing.
“I spent two days in Ibarapa and I interacted with the people. I spoke with the father.
“I asked him what happened. They told me that, Dr. Aborode was not the one that drove himself to the farm. He was carried on the motorcycle when they were going. He sat at the back. But when they were coming, it was another person. I asked where is the person that drove the motorcycle, they said that he came to the house to seek help.
“They told me that some people who saw them during the interaction said that those people are not Fulani. They were speaking Yoruba.
“The father told me that the death was political. And I called the Commissioner of Police.
“I asked after the motorcyclist that carried him. They said that they did not injure him. He came home to seek help. And a few days ago, they said that they have brought the person. All of them must be investigated,” Makinde said.
Reacting the revelations so far, some of our respondents are sad that the South West media that went agog, when Sunday Igboho was doing his thing making effort to make Fulani carry the burdens of criminality in his Yoruba region, have suddenly went voiceless since facts of the kidnaps in Edo, Ekiti and Oyo states started coming out.
An Oyo State source said: “Did we not caution our people against ethnic sentiment saying it is not only sin against God but crime against humanity? Now that Aborode, Sunday Igbo’s party chieftain for whose he mainly compiled a list and hanged the crimes in Fulani thereby killing only sibbling of Sariki Fulani Salihu AbdulKadir, burning down his houses, cars, wrostling his cows among other terrors, can he and his warriors restore the lives of over four Fulani they killed and the properties they burned and cows they looted?” He asked.
He asked, “Funny enough, do you know that some journalists still help Igboho cary around his claims that Fulani herdsmen kidnapped and killed Prince Dennis Abuda in Benin while on his way to USA? What have journalists turned Journalism to in Nigeria? If Sunday Igboho, because of his lack of knowledge, does not know that among the commonly talked about Edo criminals and not Fulani herdsmen Prince Abuda, is it not part of Journalist work to update him against his dangerous ignorance? Now see the number of Hausa people burned alive in Shasha Ibadan because of this ethnic evil.
“Again, it is interesting to know and tell you that even notable Fulani leaders acknowledge that there are criminals in all communities of humanity and that Fulani is not exempted. How many of our Yoruba, Igbo people of the South have made similar acknowledgement of the criminals among their own tribes? To an average Yoruba man, Davidoo, Awawa, other cultists, ritualists, killer thugs and varied armed robbery criminals can be tolerated so long they are Yoruba. The moment a Hausa-Fulani is found on the list, we and media pretending to work for the protection of Yoruba nation play less on our own criminals but hype the single Hausa-Fulani in the list. Those of us who do this are at war with God. Fulani in the North too have their own sufferings. Those you claim want to take your Yoruba Land now are the cattle wrostlers killing them and stealing their cows. Where is your fear of God?” He asked with sound of warning.
