By OUR REPORTER
The DEFENDER’s scoop has revealed that many of the major kidnapping and killing cases in Yoruba Land blamed on Fulani herdsmen – and for what reason Yoruba ethnic ‘warlord’, Sunday Igboho, had committed what finally pushed to where he is currently – have in actual fact been perpetrated by sons and daughters of the soil, and not largely by Fulani herdsmen as popularly claimed.
Recall that Alhaji Sulaiman Akinbami, an Ado Ekiti-based oil magnate, who was released from kidnappers’ den after paying huge amount of money as ransom, had said his kidnappers were Yoruba people.
Akinbami said this in an allegedly underreported interview he granted Punch after his release earlier in the year, after which an Osun State senator also corroborated him saying that most of the kidnap cases in the South West were orchestrated by some kings, who were sending their agents to kidnap fellow tribesmen for fortunes while still wickedly blaming it on Fulani people.
*Ige Adu, one of the newly arrested Ekiti Bandits, who confessed to many of the kidnappings in the state.
On Thursday, a source, who was in touch with Ekiti State Police Command told The DEFENDER that son of an Ado Ekiti high chief, who is leader of a kidnap gang, had been arrested and was being interrogated by the police in the state.
From the video made available to us, one of the gang members, who introduced himself as Ige Adu from Ikere Ekiti, confessed to kidnapping many Ekiti people including the oil magnate, Akinbami and a woman, whose name was not clearly stated in the clip.
“Son of a prominent chief in Ado Ekiti is the head of Ekiti Bandits,” he said.
*Son of Ado Ekiti prominent high chief and suspected leader of the Ekiti Bandits, Bunmi Ogunremi.
Asked to provide details, he said, “I am sorry I dont have the details yet. But because Chief (mentioned but name withheld) is one of the topmost high chiefs in Ado Ekiti. That is the father of the leader of the gang.
“He also has another son, who is a doctor, and has been confirmed to be leader of cult in his days in the university. What this means is that, there is an entire family of a prominent high chief in Ekiti, which can be adjudged notorious for all manner of criminalities worsening insecurity in Ekiti, Ondo states axis and, by extension, the entire South West of Nigeria.
“For this reason, although the son doctor has not been mentioned in this current case of banditry but the Inspector General of Police should show interest by personally setting up investigation into family of the particular Ekiti high chief, who died recently.
“Yes, and whose son has just been arrested, with a view to taking holistic measure at unravelling every contributor to insecurity in the region and yet still lead ethnic profiling of criminals to tag other tribe, entirely, not only as criminal but also as sole enemy of the rest of the country.,” the source said.
Most painful, according to the source, who himself is a retired security officer, is that the magnitude at which the media screamed Fulani herdsmen, while Sunday Igboho’s anti-North campaign lasted, has not been witnessed now that it has been coming out that Yoruba are actually the same people that were kidnapping and killing their fellow tribesmen, while hiding under the already known farmers/herders clashes to perpetrate their evils.
