Afenifere Reacts over Arewa Comments on Oyo herdsmen clash.

The Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere, has criticized comments by the Arewa Consultative Forum regarding a clash with Fulani herdsmen in the Ibarapa Local Government Area of Oyo State.

The group noted that Yoruba cannot be threatened with war and would not provoke war. This was contained in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin, entitled: ‘ACF hypocritical tears.’

It described the said comment as being hypocritical and said: “the South West will not run for anybody on their land.” It warned that Yoruba would not want a repeat of the incident of 1966.

According to him, “The attention of Afenifere has been drawn to the hypocritical tears of Arewa Consultative Forum over clashes in Ibarapa Local Government Area of Oyo state occasioned by the damaging activities of Fulani herdsmen against indigenous Yoruba people.

“While we have gone to a great length to sue for peace and have appealed to our pained people to be law-abiding even with the daily provocations of the Fulani and harassment of our people, we frown at the very arrogant and insulting ACF statement, especially their reference to the event of 1966.‌

“We must make it clear to them that they cannot threaten us with a war at this stage as we will not provoke war but never are we going to run for anybody on our land.

“We are miffed that a body like ACF that has never shown any remorse over the killing of our people can open their mouths anyhow now because there are consequences for the irresponsible actions of their people.

“We advise them to call their criminals to order and not expect our people to sheepishly wait to be killed by those who value cow lives more than human beings.

“We do not want a repeat of 1966 event, but if there are people plotting such event again, the rain will be over their heads.”

Recall that just yesterday, the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has said the recent attack on a Fulani community in the South West is wrong and may destabilize the country.

The group stated this in a statement to the reported attack on Alhaji Saliu Abdulkadir, the Serki Fulani in Oyo state allegedly by Yoruba youths.
The National Publicity Secretary of the group, Emmanuel Yawe, said attacks and counter-attacks like that of the Fulanis in Oyo state led to the civil war in the 1960s.