The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has attributed the growing insecurity in the country to the reason some persons and groups resort to beating war drum.
Ogunwusi who spoke with journalists after he held a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja yesterday decried the level of insecurity in the southwest occasioned by attacks by herdsmen on communities in the region lately.
The Ooni who visited the president on behalf of the traditional rulers in the southwest called on the federal government to tighten security in the face of increasing attacks by those he described as “bad eggs” and not necessarily Fulanis.
“I came to speak on behalf of other traditional rulers. The issue at hand in the southwest is real. The issue of insecurity; we that live in the remote and rural areas of the south-western part of the country, most of the bushes are occupied by strange people and we decided to work with the government to fish them out.
“Everybody is beating the drum of war; we don’t want war. Who can stand war? We want something better for our youths.
“We should better use them (youths) for something good other than shouting war and anarchy. We don’t want that.
“We told the President that and he is on the same page with us. Politicians should be careful not to blow things out of proportion.
“We should make sure things are right and the president has given good directives to security chiefs including the inspector-general of police, Mohammed Adamu, to visit all traditional institutions in the southwest,” he said.
He said not all Fulani herdsmen were involved in the attacks in the region but stated that Yoruba monarchs and their subjects would want the federal government to collaborate with the local communities to fish out the “bad eggs” among the herdsmen.
“We are not saying all Fulani are bad; it is about the bad guys working under the name of the Fulani
“It is about separating the wheat from the chaff. A lot of them are mixed up with the good ones. We are not saying all the Fulani are bad. It is not only about the Fulani, it is not only about them; it is about the bad miscreants that are even hiding under the name of the Fulani.
“We want to try as much as possible to work with the government right now. They have all the security apparatus and they are meant to defend us; that is what we are looking up to now. We have to stand up and meet with Mr. President and he has given us a listening ear and you (will) see a lot of result going forward.”
He said the southwest region does not want war but will collaborate with the federal government to salvage the situation.
“We shouldn’t keep over-hyping war and we still want to keep the peace in the South-West. We don’t want anarchy,” he said.
Commenting on the controversial rural grazing area (RUGA) settlement project, the monarch said the president told him that the scheme was taken out of context.
