Armed herdsmen suspected to be terrorists have reportedly killed no fewer than six farmers, traders and passengers 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 February 2 attack was triggered by efforts of the 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 nights, harvest our crops to feed their cows. On 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 farm areas, only for the Fulani herdsmen to come back and attacked us with AK-47, Pump Action, axes and cutlasses and killed our people at night.”
According to him, in a broad daylight, the terrorists laid ambush, attacked some traders coming from Akure and killed all the occupants before taking their money, afterwhich they set the car ablaze.
Confirming the incidence, the Onimoru of Imoru, 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 hectres of Cassava farm belonging to one of his subjects, who borrowed money with high interest rate from a commercial bank to finance his farm.
This was corroborated by the Odibiado of Ijagba, Oba Andrew Ikioya Ilevare, who stated that the bandits have now resulted to harvesting plantains and bringing them to market to sell.
The royal fathers queried why the federal government should allow herdsmen to go about with AK-47 rifles to terrorize innocent people.
They, therefore, praised the Governor of Ondo state, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu SAN, for the establishment of the Southwest Security Network codenamed Amotekun, to checkmate the excesses of the herders, especially in the area.
During his visit to the affected villages to commiserate with the families of the victims, the Chairman of the local government, Prince Adekunle Dennis, expressed the worries and concern of the Governor, Akeredolu, over the security situation in Ose, saying, something will be done urgently to checkmate the excesses of the herdsmen.
His words, “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 security 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 give correct and useful information to the security agencies as government cannot do it all alone.
He equally advised them to thoroughly profile and searches themselves with a view to fishing out informants who may be living among them.
Dennis commended the security agencies, especially the Army, the Police, DSS and Amotekun Corps for a job well done, saying their timely intervention and prompt actions prevented the terrorists from wiping off the people of Arimogija from the surface of the earth.
He charged them to intensify efforts to recover the four camps, Molege, Ugboruwen, Elerinta & Adedigba from the terrorists.
Report said many houses, cars and motorcycles were burnt during the attack, while families of the victims killed some cows to fight back.
