The Chief Press Secretary to the Oyo State Governor, Taiwo Adisa has said on Thursday, the 11th of February, 2021 that the state governments have no issues with Igboho but his game plan is not welcomed due to the possible consequences.
He mentioned that the plan of issuing eviction notices by Sunday Adeyemo popularly known as Sunday Igboho will not be useful in resolving the security challenges threatening the South Western states.
Taiwo Adisa mentioned that there’s no competition between the state and Igboho.
Adisa made this known while speaking on the topic “Fulani Herdsmen’s Violent Rampage in Ibarapa: What is The True Situation” on Thursday at a virtual town hall with International Alliance for Justice and Peace, a Diaspora-based civil society organization with interest in Nigeria.
Igboho who gave seven days warning to the herdsmen, allegedly said they’re responsible for the kidnappings, rapes, farmland destructions, amidst other wicked acts in the Ibarapa area of Oyo, he also challenged the herdsmen accusing them of terrorizing residents and farmers in the Yewa area of Ogun State.
Adisa said:
“The state is not in any competition with Sunday Igboho. The problem is about strategy, the strategy that he came up with cannot work in the environment because if you go shouting at people of other ethnic stocks to leave your community, the danger there is that your own people who are also in their different communities, the other people will unleash terror on them.
Why do you want to expose your people who are innocent, who are not doing anything to tarnish their own image or their families, and who are living peacefully in those communities? Look at what happened in Ondo for instance, the governor issued a directive and the Federal Government of Nigeria came out to start defending the people who entered the forest illegally. It is wrong. SO, it is tact that Is necessary to rid our communities of criminals.”
Taiwo Adisa acknowledged some questions and said the State government will keep on deploying the necessary resources and intelligence for state and non-state actors to rid the state of criminals.
Adisa also said;
“As to the use of non-state actors, in our clime here, there is no state that can survive without state actors, involvement in security. It is not possible because the police will not be enough no matter how small your community is, the federal police cannot be enough. So you’ve got to link up with Vigilante Services of Nigeria, even some communities link up with OPC (Oodua Peoples Congress), some communities link up with traditional hunters, and so on.
In Oyo State, for instance, this is not the first time we are witnessing some form of crises but the first time it happened, nobody really heard about it other than an alarm that was raised by the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba land, Aare Gani Adams, that some are infiltrating Oyo forests and they are trying to attack the state.
What the government did was to rely on non-state actors because there are hunters who go into those forests and filter whatever is happening in those forests and they come back to tell their leaders that they have seen so and so movement around so and so forests. And the government put together a team of state actors and non-state actors just late last year and flushed out the forests. So, it is a continuous activity that we must continue to use non-state actors and we are using them.”
