BY SAMUEL FASUA
Not less than N2.5bn would have been raked in by various kidnappers widely described as armed Fulani herdsmen operating in communities in the South-West, investigations have revealed.
Findings showed that relations of top-flight politicians or renowned business men and senior managers at construction firms had become hot preys for the armed herders, who sneak out of their deep forest abodes, to barricade major highways, especially at night.
Between January and April this year, ransoms in the region of N2.5bn had reportedly been lost to the kidnappers, especially by governments in respective states of Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and Ogun states.
Lagos State, findings have also shown, has recorded only few kidnap cases this year, apparently as a result of enhanced security surveillance.
In April alone in Ondo State, three major kidnap cases hit the state hard, resulting in what sources described as the loss of over half a billion naira from government and wealthy family members of victims.
A 50-year-old Lagos pastor, the General Overseer of Christ Uncompromised Church (CUC), Prophet Federick Aranuwa, was abducted on his way from a prayer mountain at Ifira, in Akoko South-East Local Government area, by suspected Fulani herdsmen.
Sources revealed that after the church had paid N11 million to his abductors, some well-to-do, independent devotees of the cleric also parted with close to N100 million, but that the money ultimately amounted to a waste.
The pastor’s head reportedly hit a big stone, as the kidnappers dragged him on the floor on his way to regaining freedom, and he died.
Also, a top businessman, Ibrahim Olusa; his wife, and three children were intercepted by kidnappers at Ajowa-Akoko, on their way to Abuja.
The kidnappers reportedly dispossessed them of N10 million, after having intimidated their frenzied family members and friends, to part with several millions of naira.
“The killer herders collected a whooping sum of N34.5 million in three separate operations carried out under one week in Ogun State”
Same month too, suspected herders abducted three senior road cobstruction workers at their site on Ikaram/Akunnu-Akoko highway.
They eventually released the trio, after having reportedly collected several millions of naira from both the state government and the construction firm.
The same scenario played out in Ifewara, Osun State, when two Chinese nationals were kidnapped in Ifewara, at a mining site. A sum of N10 million was reportedly collected from the firm, for its officials to breathe the air of freedom.
Earlier in March too, seven people had been similarly kidnapped on the outskirts of Osogbo, the state’s capital, but were later set free, after some ransom described as “mouth-watering”, was paid.
In Oyo State, three personalities kidnapped in late April were set free early May, after their family members each, parted with N10 million.
A spectacular case, however, was the kidnap, also in April, of a prominent hotelier, Mr. Olukunle Oyedokun, his nursing wife-Julianah, their infant, two other children, and five relatives at a hotel in Ajaawa in Ogo Oluwa Local Government area of Oyo State.
The kidnappers, while buckling to collect only N2.5 million from the abductees, had earlier raked in over N100 million from their harried relations, friends and other associates in government circles, investigations revealed.
OPC Reacts
Meanwhile, frontline Yoruba militia group, the Oodua Peoples Congress, has also indicated that close to N200 million might have been made within two months by armed Fulani herdsmen, who have stalked many Ogun State communities, kidnapping for ransom.
In a statement by the Ogun State coordinator for OPC, Adesina Jimoh, the group said it was now clear that the security agents could no longer handle the situation.
Jimoh noted that the OPC was set to serve as an alternative platform to secure lives and properties in the state, and would, from now, repel the headers “fire for fire, and violence for violence”.
He quoted a report in the media that the killer herders “collected a whooping sum of N34.5 million in three separate operations carried out under one week in Ogun State”.
He also cited another publication, which stated, “The kidnappers suspected to be herdsmen reportedly collected over N30 million from the eight victims in three separate operations carried out in different parts of Ogun State”.
“Recall also that around the second week of March, 2021, two female students of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Aiyetoro campus were kidnapped, where they also danced for the sum of N50 million,” he said.
He added that a female classroom teacher, a female nurse and her guests were also recently kidnapped around the Ijebu Igbo axis of the state, in which several millions of naira were paid as ransom, to secure their release.
He further lamented that at the Olubo village, along Abeokuta-Aiyetoro-Imeko/Afon road, early in April this year, a medical doctor and a nurse were abducted, and that a month after, their relatives could only mop up N4.5 million ransom, before they could regain freedom.
The OPC leader said one of the instances showing that the situation at hand was too enormous for the police alone to handle, was the gale of kidnappings that occured barely 48 hours after the state’s police command recently paraded 16 suspected kidnappers.
“It is worrisome to note that barely 48 hours after these criminals were paraded at the police headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, four other people – three market women and a driver – were also kidnapped at a spot near Olubo village, along the same Imeko/Afin-Aiyetoro-Abeokuta, in the Yewa North Local Government Area of the state,” he recounted.
Jimoh noted that it was evident that the series of attacks, kidnapping and rape cases could be traced to Fulani herders and that the whole situation had ethnic undertone.
“Report has it that, though the victims (of the Olugbo village kidnap) were selected in random, however, an Hausa/Fulani and a Fulani woman, who were inside the same vehicle conveying those victims were released during the operation”.
He thus said such an instance buttressed the common belief that the Yoruba people and other persons of non-Fulani descent were targets.
“We are battle ready to defend the Yoruba people of Ogun State against all acts of subjugation that may be perpetrated in any form under any guise or name: be it banditry, kidnapping, killings, raping of our girls and women, or Fulani herdsmen’s acts of terrorism.
“We are highly convinced that with the present level of wanton killings, kidnapping and raping going on across the country, particularly as it affects Ogun State, the OPC had been pushed to the wall and as such, our level of tolerance is completely exhausted.
“We are left with no other option than to defend our motherland and all the Oodua sons and daughters ‘Fire For Fire; Violence For Violence!,” Jimoh declared.
Group Lambasts Senate President
Also, a southwest sociopolitical group, Sunshine Liberation Movement, has taken a swipe at the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, accusing him of sectional tendencies and insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians in the South.
The group, in a statement in Abeokuta, Ogun State, by its President, Dipo Ajidahun, and Secretary, Mrs. Christianah Ajewole, expressed disappointment with Lawan for castigating the southern governors who jointly banned open grazing in their respective states, in the wake of frequent herdsmen attacks and kidnapping.
“It is pathetic that we have a Nigerian Senate President who has turned himself to a Northern Senate President through his actions and utterances.
“Would Lawan look away and keep suspicious silence if Yoruba farmers or Igbo traders start attacking people in his northern home-state or start kidnapping them? That is exactly what we suffer from armed Fulani herders here,” the group stated.
It particularly accused the Senate President of being insensitive to security challenges facing the southern part of the country, as against the North.
“For instance, has Lawan, as Senate President, ever considered visiting the South to commiserate with victims of herdsmen attacks and give them the assurance of Senate’s commitment to their wellbeing?
“Without doubt, through his actions and utterances, so far, Lawan only sees himself as a northern senate president and not a Nigerian senate president,” the group criticised.
The SLM, also in the statement, warned the Indigenous People of Biafra against “diversionary approach” in its threat to invade Lagos, saying that it should rather face the challenges facing its people in the South East.
The group stressed that the IPOB should learn from the miscalculation of Biafran warriors of 1967 who invaded a Yoruba territory of Ore, in present-day Ondo State and thereafter, completely lost the sympathy of the Yoruba people.
“One, both the Yoruba and the Igbo are facing the same problems of sociopolitical and economic subjugation and insecurity, and it will only be laughable if they start fighting each other,” it said.
“Besides, the Igbo and Yoruba people are not ancestrally linked in any way, and so there is no basis for IPOB to launch any attack on us, thus creating the impression that they want to reclaim our land,” the SLM contended.
It, however, said the only solution to the ongoing confusion in Nigeria was for President Muhammadu Buhari to “rise up to the occasion and match words with action, in addressing the issues of insecurity and ethnic subjugation”.
Afenifere opposes secession
Amid the calls by an-Oyo based Yoruba feedom fighter, Sunday Adeyemi, otherwise known as Sunday Igboho, that the Yoruba race should secede, owing to the unchecked criminal activities of some armed herders, the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has, however, differed.
Although some Yoruba leaders had earlier backed Igboho whose Ibadan, Oyo State home was last week raided by security agents, the Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, said the Yoruba race had invested so much in Nigeria as to lose it.
Speaking in his Ogbo residence in Odogbolu Local Council of Ogun State, the nonagenarian elder statesman said rather than secede, the Yoruba race would opt for restructuring, to correct the apparent imbalance in the current system.
Adebanjo said, “The clamour for the return of the country to federalism is born out of the obnoxious provision in the constitution, which has made economic and political progress impossible and this has been the main cause of instability in the country.
“Our resolve for the restructuring of the country back to federalism is unshakeable. We assert we are no secessionists. It is those who oppose restructuring that are enemies of a United Nigeria. That all opponents of restructuring give impetus to secessionists.”
“We do not believe in the National Assembly, which is a product of this fraudulent constitution, to amend the constitution, it is immoral and illogical for a product of fraud to amend the fraud,” he maintained.
