The village head of Ita Olori Ejo, Chief Elegbede Matthew, has narrated how Fulani herdsmen invaded and attacked their community in the middle of the night, destroying lives and property worth hundreds of millions, over a minor dispute in the farm of one of the villagers.
Herder-farmer clashes are a yearly spectacle in villages in Idofa Imeko-Afon Local Government Area of Ogun State. On Thursday night, reports say the herdsmen attacked Idofa, Iyana Agbede, Ijaale, Isiabo and environs after their cows were killed by local vigilantes for trespassing on a farm.
Narrating the ordeal, Chief Elegbede ,who also lost his brother in the fiasco ,said he felt sad how the barbaric actions of the herdsmen turned his brother’s 16 children fatherless and his wife into a widow.
“When the clash started, farmers in the village had to run away from the village. I sent my wives and children to my house in Ilara.Likewise, my younger brother, Olabisi Elegbede, also asked a motorcyclist to take his wife and children to another town. He had an agreement with the motorcyclist to come back and pick him afterwards. I was also waiting for the motorcyclist to take me to join my family. We had envisaged that the Fulani men would come back to attack the village. Unfortunately, the motorcyclist didn’t come back to pick us, so we decided to sleep in my house, hoping that we would leave the village early in the morning of the following day.
“But true to our fear, these Fulani men came late in the night, armed with AK-47 rifles and other weapons. Around 10.30pm, we heard sounds of gunshots and people speaking a strange language we could not understand. They came straight to my house but before they got to where I was sleeping, I managed to escape through the back door of the room and ran into a nearby bush to hide. I saw them setting houses in the village on fire and attacking anyone on sight.
“After the Fulani men left, some vigilantes in the village came to my house because they had heard sounds of gunshots and saw smoke coming from my house. I joined them then and we started looking for my younger brother. At first, we couldn’t find him because of the smoke but on the second check, through the window, we found him dead in the room; he was shot dead.”
Chief Elegbede pleaded with the federal government to build a police post in the community to forestall future recurrences.
Bloody clashes between farmers and cattle herders have become a frequent occurrence in many local governments in Ogun state. Recently, these crisis forced many villagers to flee from Ketu-Yewa in Ogun State to the neighbouring Benin Republic.
