Police locked up farmers whose farms were destroyed by Wakili

Following the arrest of 75-year-old Isikilu Wakili, an alleged notorious kidnap kingpin in Ayete/Kajola community of the Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State by men of the Oodua Peoples Congress, the residents insist that never again will Wakili be allowed to return. In this interview with WALE OYEWALE, a youth leader in the community, Ganiyu Omirinde, talks about the ordeals of many years cohabitating with cattle herders

We learnt that you led a team that took a letter to Isikilu Wakili in Kajola weeks before he was arrested by the OPC. Can you confirm this and tell us what the letter is all about?

Gunshots were fired at us but we were saved by metaphysical powers. We took to our heels and headed in different directions; some of our people ran to Kajola. We later decided to go and take the bikes from where we left them despite the danger involved. I risked going to our people in the Kajola community. We ferried the damaged motorbikes with a truck.

What necessitated the letter that you took to Abu?

The herdsmen had constituted nuisance to us. They vandalise our farms; they attack and inflict pains our men and rape our women. They beat many with sticks, clubbed many others, while they cut many more with machetes. They destroy property and vandalise farms, and at the end of it all, security agents will release the herders to go free without paying any compensation and without prosecution. They incapacitated us and turned us away from the farm. We became subservient to them and they now turn round to be the ones selling food to us. We have no option but to buy yam, maize and millet from them as they barred us from cultivating our land. We now have nothing.