Prince Justice Faloye
In a video that went viral, the only surviving Oba out of the three Obas attacked in Ekiti State, specifically stated that they were attacked by Fulani/Afro-Arabians. On February 4th, Punch and other newspapers reported that an ‘Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Dare Ogundare, said that a suspect, Babusa Lede, had confessed to involvement in the killing of the two monarchs, adding that efforts were on to apprehend others involved. Later that day, Channels TV reported that Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abutu Sunday, announced the arrest of more suspects, all Afro-Arabians, who he identified as ‘Yaya Sumaila, Idrisu Abubakar, Hassan Abudullahi, Abudullahi Abudullahi, Haruna Abubakar, Usman Abudullahi, Haruna Sule’. It is believed the confessions of the first arrested suspect, Babusa Alhaji Lede led a combined team to the arrest of the others inside Ayedun/ Ayebode Ekiti forest in Ikole Area of the state.
One would have thought it was an open and shut case but then we started receiving Social Media reports from known pro-Tinubu factions and Fulani Afro-Arabic quarters claiming an 80 plus Yoruba man, Engineer Olowofela had been arrested, which wasn’t collaborated by any reputable newspaper or television reports, nor with any police reports 48hrs afterwards, unlike the others immediately revealed by the police. The source of the first trickle of rumors raised suspicions that this story was being cooked up to frame an innocent old man to save the face of the government. This was a massive ‘where are the cows’ moment denying the obvious!
Suspicions were further aroused when a retired editor Bola Bolawole that was present at the Afenifere Akure fiasco wrote a scathing article blaming it on the Yoruba collective social ills. Going through the article that had NO EVIDENCE, you could see how it was spun with half truths of Yoruba sociopolitical history to castigate the Yoruba collective, and concluding it with his visit with the Afenifere faction to APC Governor Oyebanji for a mirage of insider knowledge of the crime. It became a circus when Yoruba irredentists that had supported Awalokan tribalistic campaigns started heaping curses on fellow Yorubas to absolve Tinubu’s failure to curb Fulani herdsmen attacks. Even if the news was true, you would expect shame, not the palatable relief that it wasn’t Fulani herdsmen that could be blamed on Tinubu. Self debilitating fanaticism!
Some of my Igbo friends joked that the Unknown Gunmen syndrome had now moved to Yorubaland, which reminded me of the protestations over the last few years by reputable Igbos like Prof Obasi Igwe that have always insisted that the killings in Ndigboland were carried out by outsiders. Recently, we heard a Niger Delta militant Asari say publicly that the APC government had used his forces for deadly operations. Even some Northerners had always insisted that those carrying out terrorist acts were imported Fulani and other Afro-Arabians imported by the APC government. The coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger were reportedly based on allegations that the Fulani terrorists were shipped from outside by the French.
The profile of Olowofela just doesn’t match the crime, nor is there any motive. His Igbara Odo community have come out to vouch for the impeccable character of the qualified Civil Engineer of many decades, the third highest chief, a once Majority Leader of the old Ondo State assembly, a special adviser to the first Ondo State Governor, a PDP governorship candidate in the last election, a man with several successful children, a scholar and politician, whose only tie with one of the kidnappers is that the suspect worked at his Olowofela Sawmill! We all employ various Afro-Arabians as hard labourers and security guards, which doesn’t make us co-conspirators to any crime they might commit outside our premises. Olowofela doesn’t share the Afro-Arabic ethnic cleansing ideology so we need evidence of receiving unaccountable wealth, but the police have not even acknowledged his arrest.
It stinks to high heavens and is scary that there might be a grand conspiracy to hide the identities of Fulani kidnappers and terrorists to save the face of President Tinubu. It is a known fact that Tinubu government relies on media spins and propaganda. We have suffered a deluge of propaganda on the worsening economic situation, which can’t fool the hungry masses, but propaganda on insecurity is by far more socially destructive since it blinds us to real dangers and lowers defense. Is this the beginning of the Unknown Gunmen syndrome experienced in Igboland during Buhari’s regime, and although we don’t have violent separatists or terrorists that murders and kidnaps, innocent Yoruba citizens might be used as fall guys to deflect blame.
Following the Akure Afenifere debacle, I wrote in my last article that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the proof of the real Afenifere is in its activism. It is alarming that the first media activity of the Akure Afenifere is obfuscation of our real kidnapper and killers. The painful part is that Tinubu tried to do the same thing to save face of the Buhari government by asking ‘where are the cows’ when Pa Fasonranti daughter was killed and the only survivor stated, like the surviving Oba has now done, that the killers were Fulani. Oba Falae was once kidnapped and his workers lost their lives to those he claimed were Fulani herdsmen. With their retired editor using an exception to the rule to castigate the Yoruba Collective as kidnappers, are they now to revise their stance on Fulani herdsmen threat in Yorubaland to save Tinubu’s face, like they came out of retirement to revise their lifelong ideological positions in Afenifere Awolowo’s social welfarism to back neo-liberal Tinubu?
Yorubas pray that God shouldn’t hide to punish us, but when those meant to be the voice of the people, the voice of God, engage in coverups that endanger Yorubas lives, we gotta a big problem. Economic propaganda that prevents us knowing where our next meals are coming from, and security propaganda that prevents us from knowing our real enemies. Yorubaland might be engulfed by Unknown Gunmen syndrome if we refuse to ask the right questions.
