No fewer than six people have been gruesomely murdered in the last two weeks at Arimogija and Molege axis of Ose Local Government Area of Ondo state by suspected armed herdsmen which villagers called terrorists.
Narrating the ordeal, a community leader, Owolafe Folorunsho said the February 2 attack was triggered by effort by farmers to repel the continued wanton destruction of their crops by the herdsmen.
According to him, “the herders have continued to invade our farmlands at night, harvest our crops to feed their cows and on many occasions, they will come during the day, forced us to uproot the cassava by ourselves at gunpoint, command us to cut them into pieces to feed their cows.
“In order not to take laws into our hands, we reported this act of economic sabotage to the appropriate authority who took prompt action to chase them out of the farming areas only for the Fulani herdsmen to come back and attacked us with AK-47, pump action, axes and cutlasses and killed our people at night.”
Folorunsho said in a broad daylight, the terrorists laid ambush, attacked some traders coming from Akure and killed all the occupants before taking their money and set the car ablaze.
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While confirming the incidence to journalists on Sunday, the Onimoru of Imoru, Rotimi Obamuwagun, who lamented the atrocities of the Fulanis in the area, expressed his disgust about the criminal activities of the herdsmen in his domain.
Obamuwagun, narrated how Fulanis completely destroyed four hectares of cassava farm belonging to one of his subject who borrowed money high interest rate from a commercial bank to finance farm.
Speaking in the same vein, the Odibiado of Ijagba, Andrew Ikioya Ilevare added that the bandits have now resulted to harvesting plantains and bring them to market to sell.
The monarch, who queried why should federal government allow herdsmen to go about with AK-47 rifles to terrorize innocent people, however, praised the Governor of Ondo state, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu for the establishment of the Southwest Security Network popularly known as Amotekun to checkmate the excesses of the herders especially in the area.
Report says many houses, cars and motorcycles were burnt during the attack while the families of the victims killed some cows to fight back
