No fewer than six farmers, traders and passengers have been murdered in the last two weeks at Arimogija and Molege axis of Ose Local Government Area of Ondo state.
Narrating the ordeal, a community leader, Mr. Owolafe Folorunsho said the recent attack was triggered by effort by farmers to repel the continued wanton destruction of their crops by the herdsmen.
According to him, “the herders have continued to invade our farmlands at night, harvest our crops to feed their Cows and in many occasions, they will come during the day, forced us to uproot the Cassava by ourselves at gunpoint, command us to cut them into pieces to feed their cows.
“In order not to take laws into our hands, we reported this act of economic sabotage to the appropriate authority who took prompt action to chase them out of the farming areas only for the Fulanis to come back and attacked us with AK-47, Pump Action, Axes, Cutlasses and killed our people at night.
“In a broad daylight, the terrorists laid ambush, attacked some traders coming from Akure and killed all the occupants before taking their money and set the car ablaze.
Several houses, cars and motorcycles were burnt during the attack while the families of the victims killed some cows to fight back.
Confirming the incidence, the Onimoru, Oba Rotimi Obamuwagun lamented the atrocities of the Fulanis in the area.
Expressing his disgust about the criminal activities of the herdsmen in his domain, the first class monarch narrated how Fulanis completely destroyed four hectares of Cassava farm belonging to one of his subject that borrowed money from a commercial bank to finance farm.
This was corroborated by the Odibiado of Ijagba, Oba Andrew Ikioya Ilevare who said that the bandits have now resulted to harvesting plantains and bringing them to market to sell.
The royal fathers, wondered why should federal government allow herdsmen to go about with AK-47 rifles to terrorize innocent people.
They praised the Governor of Ondo state, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu SAN for the establishment of the Southwest Security Network popularly known as Amotekun to checkmate the excesses of the herders especially in the area.
The Chairman of Ose government, Adekunle Dennis expressed the worries of Governor, Akeredolu SAN over the security situation in Ose saying, something will be done urgently to checkmate the excesses of the herdsmen.
“The council is meeting with the relevant authorities and stakeholders with the aim of redesigning the security architecture of all the flashpoints to nip the challenges in the bud.”
While calling on the community leaders and youth organizations to be more security conscious, the council boss charged them to improve on intelligence information gathering that will enable them useful information to the security agencies as government cannot do it all alone.
