Following the arrest of 75-year-old Isikilu Wakili, an alleged notorious kidnap kingpin in Ayete/Kajola community of the Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State by men of the Oodua Peoples Congress, the residents insist that never again will Wakili be allowed to return. In this interview with Punch’s WALE OYEWALE, a youth leader in the community, Ganiyu Omirinde, talks about the ordeals of many years cohabitating with cattle herders
We learnt that you led a team that took a letter to Isikilu Wakili in Kajola weeks before he was arrested by the OPC. Can you confirm this and tell us what the letter is all about?
Yes, I was part of the team that went to Wakili’s camp. The letter was to initiate peace between the rampaging herders and our community. We went as a team that day because of eventualities. The family and the entire community listed me among those who would bear the message, because I know the herders just as much as they know me. We went to their camp to hand them a letter on the fateful day, but they attacked us. That was eight days after Chief Sunday Adeyemo, aka Igboho, went to Igangan following which the Seriki Fulani of Igangan, Fatai Abdulkdri, was sent packing from the community.
We went straight to their camp to hand over the letter to Abu, Wakili’s son. On getting there, we brought out the letter to hand it over to Abu. We were told that he was not around. They gave us an idea of where we could find him, so we traced him to the place. On getting to the place, we didn’t see Abu, so we returned to his place where we first asked after him. We left the letter for him there.
On getting to where we parked the seven motorcycles, which conveyed us, we discovered that the Fulani boys had vandalised them. They swooped on us and started shelling us with pump action guns. We parked seven motorbikes somewhere under the cashew tree, about half a kilometre to Wakili’s camp. They destroyed the tyres and broke the speedometer and other parts.
How did you escape and how did you evacuate the bikes to town from the jungle?
Gunshots were fired at us but we were saved by metaphysical powers. We took to our heels and headed in different directions; some of our people ran to Kajola. We later decided to go and take the bikes from where we left them despite the danger involved. I risked going to our people in the Kajola community. We ferried the damaged motorbikes with a truck.
What necessitated the letter that you took to Abu?
The herdsmen had constituted nuisance to us. They vandalise our farms; they attack and inflict pains our men and rape our women. They beat many with sticks, clubbed many others, while they cut many more with machetes. They destroy property and vandalise farms, and at the end of it all, security agents will release the herders to go free without paying any compensation and without prosecution. They incapacitated us and turned us away from the farm. We became subservient to them and they now turn round to be the ones selling food to us. We have no option but to buy yam, maize and millet from them as they barred us from cultivating our land. We now have nothing.
For us to eat, we go to cafeterias because we don’t have foodstuffs any longer. Ayete was a food basket before. Today in Ayete, you cannot eat N200 worth of amala and get satisfied because it is so expensive. All this is because we have been barred from our farms. We have to drink more water when eating. As we speak, a mini-truck load of cassava tubers is now N300,000, whereas it was N270,000. The problem is that it is very hard to come by.
