Nigeria at war, herdsmen taking over – Afenifere leader, Fasoranti weeps
Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, whose daughter, Mrs Funke Olakunrin, was killed by an armed gang on the Kajola-Ore road, Ondo State, on Friday July 12, has raised an alarm over the state of Nigeria.
He spoke on Sunday when former Ogun governor, Gbenga Daniel, and other sympathisers paid him a condolence visit.
In a video obtained by DAILY POST on Monday, Fasoranti, who was in tears, said in Yoruba, that the country was at war, and that Fulani herdsmen were scaring people and occupying farmlands across the nation.
His words: “May God continue to protect us because we are at war. When we go to the farm we meet them (herdsmen) there; that even scares us. We cannot go to our fathers’ land again.
“If we plant crops, they (herdsmen) won’t allow it be. So we must continue to pray and may God continue to answer our prayers.”
Earlier, on Saturday, President Muhammadu Buhari was in phone contact with the Yoruba leader.
A statement by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, said Buhari condoled with the grieving nonagenarian, wishing him the comfort of God, and fortitude to bear the great loss.
“He also assured that security agencies would spare no effort to apprehend the culprits, and bring them to justice”, it added.
On Sunday, Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo stated that the Federal Government was doing everything possible to improve the nation’s security architecture to ensure the protection of lives and property.
Osinbajo during his visit to Fasoranti, said: “We are looking at the whole security architecture and trying to scale up and ensure that we are able to protect the lives and properties of Nigerians.
“Security in a big country like Nigeria, as you can imagine the challenge, is dynamic and we also have to be consistently dynamic to ensure that we are able to beat the challenges as they appear,’’ he said.
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Osinbajo recalled how Buhari recently met the service chiefs and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, during which the latter laid out a new policy of the community policing.
“One of the most important things in this sort of crime, because they are largely economic crimes, is that people try to make money by kidnapping.
‘‘Another important thing is intelligence gathering; that is why we have the community policing system where policemen would be trained in their own local governments and they would remain there.
“This is as close as we get to the community policing structure that we expect to have while we are engaging the Army so that there will be a bit of more military presence especially along the roads.’’
Osinbajo disclosed that the IGP had already committed to ensuring that there was full coverage by the police and even helicopters.
“This is to fasten the search for these killers and also to ensure that there is adequate police presence to deter this kind of terrible situation from re-occurring,’’ he said.
He expressed hope that there would be peace and calm as “some of the steps taken begin to come into fruition’’.
On his part, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) described the incident as seriously unacceptable.
Tinubu expressed concern about insecurity in the country and its challenges, which he said, must be faced squarely.
“The security challenges are numerous across the country. We have to fight it. More police are being recruited but it will take time to train and deploy them to various areas.
“Additional police patrols and security reinforcements are necessary along Ore Road and other black spots.
“We have discussed it among the various authorities and the governor is eminently aware and being proactive about it.
“We also have to fight poverty, unemployment and other causes that might lead people to crime and equally create opportunities to convert this tragedy to prosperity,’’ he said.
