In A Bid To Address The Root Cause Of Kidnappings, Akeredolu Orders Herdsmen To Vacate Ondo Forests
The Oasis Reporters
January 18, 2021
Night-grazing is banned with immediate effect because most farm destruction takes place at night.
“Movement of cattle within cities and highways is prohibited.
Emerging from the lethargy of political correctness by murmuring behind closed doors while shedding tears over a litany of kidnappings, killings and other crimes committed by so called bandits who are more often than not, giving peaceful Fulani elements a bad name, Ondo state Governor, Barr. Rotimi Akeredolu has ordered all herdsmen to leave Ondo forest reserves within seven days. The governor has also banned night grazing. The two directives the governor said are aimed towards addressing the root of kidnapping and other nefarious activities in the state.
Today we have taken major steps at addressing the root cause of kidnapping, in particular, and other nefarious activities detailed and documented in security reports, the press and debriefings from victims of kidnap cases in Ondo State.
— Arakunrin Akeredolu (@RotimiAkeredolu) January 18, 2021
In a statement issued on his official Twitter handle, the governor regretted that the forest reserves have become hiding places for felons.
The governor said “Today we have taken major steps at addressing the root cause of kidnapping, in particular, and other nefarious activities detailed and documented in security reports, the press and debriefings from victims of kidnap cases in Ondo State.
“These unfortunate incidents are traceable to the activities of some bad elements masquerading as herdsmen. These felons have turned our forest reserves into hideouts for keeping victims of kidnapping, negotiating for ransom and carrying out other criminal activities.”
Affirming that the decision on herdsmen to leave Ondo forest reserves was taken as part of his responsibility as the Chief Law and Security Officer of the state, the governor said:
In its usual magnanimity, our administration will give a grace period of seven days for those who wish to carry on with their cattle-rearing business to register with appropriate authorities.
— Arakunrin Akeredolu (@RotimiAkeredolu) January 18, 2021
“All Forest Reserves in the state are to be vacated by herdsmen within the next 7 days with effect from today, Monday 18th January 2021.
Security watchers believe that the implementation of this directive would meet a lot of hurdles as regards where the assumed herders would relocate to, against the backdrop of the Nigerian constitution that guarantees free movement of people of Nigerian nationality and West Africans under the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons and goods.
This is also being realistically viewed under lopsided arrangements of top security positions that may seem to be weighted in favour of personnel who would back the right of herders or anyone to stay wherever he or she chooses to be.
One other thing that many security watchers would agree on is that the testimony of most kidnap victims point to the fact that most armed abductors tend to be Fulani or armed Fulani language speakers.
Most of the kidnappers often shoot to kill victim drivers outrightly in a bid to force speeding vehicles to lose control and hostages are forced under torturous conditions to call family and friends to deliver huge amounts of money or lose their lives.
Some of the kidnappers often claim in their relaxed moments that they are herdsmen without cattle. Yet they are hardly seen restocking their cattle despite the huge ransoms, sometimes in millions that they collect from traumatized victims. This gives the lie that they are more or less, pure criminals.
The personal life story of Bishop Ajayi Crowther lends credence that Fulani elements have been in the business of kidnapping and selling hostages into slavery since the arrival of Othman Dan Fodio in what was to become known as Nigeria.
Read on:
182-year old Letter: How I Was Sold Into Slavery – Ajayi Crowther.
One of the victims of slave trade was Bishop Ajayi Crowther, though rescued along with some other captives by some British anti-slavery frigates on the Atlantic before the vessel that carried them sailed to the Americas.
Sourced from, A Patriot to The Core: Bishop Ajayi Crowther by Professor J. F. Ade-Ajayi, in this 182-year old letter, Crowther narrated how he was captured as a boy, sold, bartered for disposable articles, rescued and others.
Ajayi Crowther was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church. He was 12 years old when he was captured, along with his mother and toddler brother and other family members, along with his entire village, by Muslim Fulani slave raiders in 1821 and sold to Portuguese slave traders.
In his 1837 letter to Rev. Williams Jowett, then Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, Crowther narrated his capture into slavery and rescue.
Rev. and Dear Sir,
As I think it will be interesting to you to know something of the conduct of Providence in my being brought to this Colony, where I have the happiness to enjoy the privilege of the Gospel, I give you a short account of it, hoping I may be excused if I should prove rather tedious in some particulars.
I suppose sometimes about the commencement of the year 1821, I was in my native country, enjoying the comforts of father and mother, and affectionate love of brothers and sisters. From this period I must date the unhappy, but which I am now taught, in other respects, to call blessed day, which I shall never forget in my life.
I call it unhappy day, because it was the day in which I was violently turned out of my father’s house, and separated from relations; and I which I was made to experience what is called to be in slavery – with regard to its being called blessed, it being the day which Providence had marked out for me to set out on my journey from the land of heathenism, superstition, and vice, to a place where His Gospel is preached.
For some years, war had been carried on in my Eyo (Oyo) country, which was always attended with much devastation and bloodshed; the women, such men as had surrendered or were caught, with the children, were taken captives. The enemies who carried on these war were principally the Oyo Mahomendans, with whom my country abounds- with the Foulahs (Fulbe), and such foreign slaves as had escaped from their owners. Joined together, making a formidable force of about 20,000, who annoyed the whole country. They had no other employment but selling slaves to the Spaniards and Portuguese on the coast”….
