Igangan youths welcome Makinde with placards

Aggrieved youths in Igangan, Ibarapa North-West Local Council Development Area of Oyo State, on Monday, welcomed Governor Seyi Makinde with a peaceful demonstration.

Makinde, who arrived in the area on Sunday evening, held meetings with stakeholders in a bid to find lasting solution to the herdsmen crisis rocking the area.

Stern-looking youths in Igangan, however, greeted the governor on Monday with several placards shortly before another meeting.

Some of the inscriptions on the placards read: ‘End Farmers Bloodshed in Igangan’, ‘Fulani Must Stop Raping Our Women’, ‘Ibarapaland Not Fulani RUGA’, ‘No More Seriki, No More Carnage’, ‘Stop Fulani Massacre Of Ibarapa People’.

The youths also displayed photos of victims including that of Dr Fatai Aborode, a prominent farmer who was allegedly killed by Fulani herders because they wanted to drive him away from where he had his farm.

The Convener, Igangan Development Advocates, Oladiran Oladokun, told The PUNCH that the inscriptions on placards were the specific demands of the people of Igangan and Ibarapaland.

The PUNCH had earlier reported that a popular Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, well known as Sunday Igboho, asked herdsmen accused of perpetrating crimes ranging from kidnappings, killings, rape to invasion of farmlands with their cattle to leave Ibarapa within seven days.

At the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum, Igangan residents, emboldened by Igboho’s presence, had ejected the Seriki Fulani, Abdulkadri Saliu, and his herders out of the rustic town.

The residents of the town also vowed never to allow Saliu and his men return to the community.