From Bode Durojaiye, Oyo.
About six border communities in the Saki-West local government area of Oyo State are under siege of armed bandits who unleash terror on the residents.
The communities, Okerete, Orita, Ayemojuba, Akorede, Jariogbe and Yankan-Alade, very close to Nikki border boundary between Nigeria and Benin-Republic are predominantly dominated by Fulani herdsmen and
their families.
The herdsmen have large cow dungs where cattle are reared in large numbers after which the animals will be taken to a central market known as Ago-Oluabi for sale to cow dealers, and other customers within and outside the state.
After the market, the Fulani herdsmen would return to their
settlements large sums of money as proceeds from the cattle sold. But as soon as they return to their base, bandits, who have been laying ambush, would swoop on the unsuspecting cattle rearers at gun point and snatch all the monies in their possession.
Even at midnights, the bandits, who were said to be mainly
youths, would invade the communities, search every room for money and other valuable property, and inflict bodily injuries with sharp cutlasses on any of the residents who could not provide money or other ‘worthy’ property.
Besides the fact that roads to the border communities are undulating, there are several illegal routes being plied by smugglers, thus making the areas vulnerable to criminal activities.
Many residents were said to have relocated to Saki town, a distance of over an hour to the border communities, and other parts of the state for fear of further attacks and scores of other residents were reported to have sustained serious injuries from the invasion.
Disturbed about the rampant and unabated dastardly acts, all the Fulani herdsmen residing in the community last Sunday invited the State Commander of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), a para-military outfit established by the late President Umaru Yar’adua, to save their souls from the bandits.
At the meeting attended by over 800 herdsmen, head of the
Fulani community in Saki land, Jouro Batanbamu, revealed their ordeals in the hands of the bandits, and how they lost several millions of naira to the attacks and invasion.
According to him, “We, the entire Fulani herdsmen in Saki and its environs, have implicit confidence in VGN for safety of our lives and property. We are daily at the mercy of the armed criminals who operate at will without any security protection for us’’.
Responding, the VGN commander, Sunday Olajide, gave an assurance that out of 10,000 officers and men under his command in the state, over 500 would be immediately deployed to keep vigil in the border communities.
Impressed by the response of the VGN Commander, over 200
Fulani volunteered to join the organisation.
