Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, on Friday, arrived in Igangan in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, on the expiration of the quit notice he gave to Fulani settlers in the local council.
The state helmsman, Governor Seyi Makinde, had, on Wednesday, warned against the quit notice, in a state broadcast, as he condemned the threat to evict the Fulani out of Yorubaland.
In his address to the people of the state, Governor Makinde, warned Igboho and others behind the threat to desist from it or be ready to face the wrath of the law.
But defying the governor’s order to make real his threat, Igboho and his entourage arrived Igangan in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, and were received by a mammoth crowd, who had gathered awaiting his arrival.
Touching down on Igangan soil, Igboho, was ushered into the Igangan Town Hall by his by hundreds of the community youths, singing his praises and applauding his commitment to the cause of the Yoruba nation and its people.
The Fulani herders in Ibarapa communities have been accused of being behind the kidnapping and killings of Yoruba people within the Ibarapa communities, as it was also alleged one of the children of the traditional leader of Igangan was recently kidnapped by the herders, and it was said the kidnappers collected N4 million ransom before the child was released.
ALSO READ: Osinbajo wants consolidation on gains recorded in MSMEs space
Addressing the youths and his teeming supporters in Igangan, Igboho, said, he became angry over the increasing crime rate in Yorubaland, and said he took it up as a responsibility to rescue Yoruba people from the siege laid against them by the “foreign” Fulani herders in his fatherland.
“What is happening will not be limited to this place, we will drive out Fulani from entire Yorubaland. They want to be killing us. We will not accept this,” Igboho said.
Igboho, who had also given the leader of the Fulani in Ibarapa communities, popularly known as Seriki Fulani, a quit notice, accused him of aiding his men who, he said, unleashed terror on Yoruba farmers and others in Yorubaland.
Before Igboho arrived Igangan on Friday, the youths had set bonfires on the streets, and this heightened tension in the entire Ibarapa area of Oyo State, even as the quit notice given to herdsmen to vacate Ibarapa communities expired on Friday.
Igboho, had, last week Friday, stormed the Fulani settlements in Igangan at Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, and issued a seven-day ultimatum for them to vacate their communities.
The Yoruba defenders said he became angry by the incessant killings, kidnappings, and destruction of farms being allegedly carried out by herdsmen in Ibarapa and its environs, as he also alleged that the Fulani herders were the masterminds of abductions, killings, and other criminal activities in Yorubaland.
However, on her resumption to duty, the new Commissioner of Police in the state, Ngozi Onadeko, had warned the people of Oyo State against engaging in act of lawlessness and violence in any part of the state.
Onadeko, gave the warning in a statement issued on Thursday by the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr Olugbenga Fadeyi, who also informed that four persons were injured when Igboho visited last Friday.
In the melee that ensued, he said it was alleged that the Fulani also ambushed farmers returning from their farms same Friday night and hacked four of them, leaving them with different degree of injuries.
