By Chuks Okocha
Disturbed by the rising tension in the South-west region over the arrest order issued on a Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo Igboho, by the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mohammed Adamu, the Secretary of the National Consultative Front (NCFront), Olawale Okunniyi, has cautioned the police chief not to further exacerbate the building tension in the Southwest by arresting the Yoruba activist.
Okunniyi said the activist (Igboho) actions has the support of the Yoruba nation “because his radical intervention is quell the unfortunate spate of kidnapping, ransom-taking and murder in the forests in the region.
The NCFront leader, in a statement issued by his media office yesterday, warned that such arrest order at a time like this and on the issue of the pervasive criminality in the Southwest forest would only aggravate the situation rather than resolve it.
He said the current activism of Igboho is popular among the Yoruba people, and that such directive to arrest him might trigger an unintended civil strife in the region.
Okunniyi, who is also the spokesperson of Pro National Conference Organisations (PRONACO) further stated that elders and traditional rulers in the region are already consulting on the best way to handle the matter and a major intervention would be made soon.
According to him, “The Yoruba people are really aggrieved and traumatised at the moment over the random kidnapping, raping, maiming and killings of their kinsmen and women in their forest by those considered as criminal herders, which has therefore made the radical intervention of Igboho popular among the Yoruba people.
“So any attempt to arrest him by the state may backfire; Instead, there sould be a resolution to calm the heightening tension in land. What I know for sure is that Yoruba elders and traditional rulers are already consulting on the best solution on this matter.”
