A socio-cultural group, Yoruba Appraisal Forum (YAF), has warned all those fomenting trouble under the guise of fighting for the freedom of the South-west to desist or risk the wrath of its millions of members across the region.
Speaking against the backdrop of the recent violence in Ibarapa Local Government Area of Oyo state, YAF national coordinator, Adesina Animashaun, in a statement Sunday in Abuja, titled, “Yoruba Appraisal Forum will resist vendors of violence in the South-west, Enough is enough!” warned that it would no longer tolerate any individual or group of persons in Yorubaland to carry out any violent under the guise of hunting for criminals.
YAF vowed that it would no longer fold its hands and watch persons, groups and their collaborators pretending to be protecting the common interests of the people of the South-West “to further destroy the economic and social wellbeing of our people.”
YAF argued that the quit notice issued by some individuals, who are neither state actors nor security agents, to some other Nigerians living in the South-West, which resulted in the recent violence witnessed in some parts of the region, was uncalled for and unnecessary.
The Forum stated that the South-west had yet to recover from the huge losses it suffered during last year’s #EndSARS protests in which individuals and governments lost properties worth trillions of Naira in addition to the invaluable lives of Yoruba and people of other ethnic nationalities killed.
It noted that the masterminds of the recent violence in Ibarapa land had “a more sinister objective of destabilising the Nigerian nation for the selfish political end of their sponsors and paymasters, but merely covering up their agenda with the cloak of fighting for Yoruba freedom.”
YAF, therefore, challenged the police and other security agencies “to unmask both the local and foreign sponsors of these agents of violence.”
The Forum called on the police to take appropriate and urgent actions “to deal decisively with these individuals who are bent on fomenting trouble in the South-West” to nip their evil plans in the bud.
YAF further warned that it members would not hesitate to “confront those planning another wave of violence in any part of the South-West under the guise of hunting for criminal elements, because it’s an ill-wind that will blow no one any good.”
“YAF won’t hesitate to mobilise all our members across Yorubaland to confront those planning another wave of violence in any part of the South-West under the guise of hunting for criminal elements, because it is an ill-wind that will blow no one any good.
“We, therefore, advise the Yoruba individuals and groups concerned to immediately begin to resist the manipulation by their sponsors and paymasters, who have been emboldening them to continue to thread the path of destruction.”
