According to Chief Olufemi Awani who granted an interview to Punch, said, the issue is not about Fulani, but there was a complaint in January.
One Fulani man known as Abdullahi went to the police station to say his cows were killed in the bush and he accused some of our community leaders and the chief hunter of being responsible for the killing of the cows.
But the people denied the allegation. Even where he claimed that the cows were killed is not on Ifon land and we told him specifically to point at anyone who killed his cow. Since the case had no basis, the DPO didn’t say anything and the matter went away like that.
But in February, the same set of people, who were alleged to have killed the cows, were invited again to the police station.
So, on getting there, they introduced two men in mufti to them. They said they were policemen from the office of the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, FIB, Special Tactical Squad, Abuja. They said that they have come for peace.
They said one Usman, who we never knew, petitioned Abuja about the killing of cows. They said our people should come to Abuja to tell their own side of the story. They now brought out a letter.
The letter read: ‘A case of criminal conspiracy, mischief, threat to life and attempted kidnapping that your name featured.
You are kindly requested to interview the undersigned officer on 15/03/2021 by 10:00 hours for fact-finding through DSP Ibrahim Agu’.
They insisted that they should go that day. We now told them that we were in mourning because our Oba died; that they just couldn’t take people away like that without causing tension in this place. They now said okay, they would come back on March 15.
By the time we now got wind of this, we were all apprehensive that the letter did not say anything about the killing of cows.
So, how do you just invite people to Abuja when there was never any confrontation with anybody? There was no dispute that resulted in threat to kidnap; they never met the complainant. We later suspected that maybe some powers wanted to influence the issue.
If something happens in Ifon, there is an Area Command in Owo; there’s Commissioner of Police in Akure; there is an AIG in this zone, but they bypassed all these and decided to go all the way to Abuja; then we suspected maybe it’s not even true or it may be a ploy to incarcerate us so as to silence us on the issue of herdsmen disturbing us because the herdsmen are kidnapping and robbing people on the Ifon/Owo Road, which is a problem for us.
There is still the problem of herders still chasing people from their farms. So, this is the genesis of the whole thing.
Nobody is saying the police should not do their work, but in a situation where our Kabiyesi was killed on the road by armed men, we didn’t tag anybody. We didn’t say any Hausa or Fulani man should not complain.
But if he complained in Ifon and there was nothing to be done and he now went to Abuja and you are now inviting us to Abuja, it is unfair. The police are doing this when we have not resolved the problem of who killed our Kabiyesi.
There is no investigation that we know of. As of today, nobody has been apprehended. We didn’t say anybody should not complain. We didn’t say they should not investigate. If they can do this, then they should help us tackle our own problem, which is the insecurity issue.
In January, some herdsmen were apprehended, the police said that they saw clothes of some kidnapped victims with them. They arrested some of them but I don’t know if they are the real perpetrators.
But they’re suspects anyway. Those ones, I’m told, are still in police custody and they’re herdsmen. So, we’re thinking this is part of the plans of their ‘big’ people to frustrate anything to get justice in this part of the country; otherwise, how do you ask people to come to Abuja from Ifon? How’ll they carry their witnesses? What will they do to go to the police headquarters?
Those chiefs invited are in Ifon. There are young people among them and they’re leaders too. There is also a high chief among them.
Culled from Punch
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