Pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, says Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is right that the herdsmen crisis rocking the South-West region may lead to a fresh civil war.
It also called on members of the international community to be interested in the herdsmen crisis and intervene to salvage the country from the present mess.
Afenifere National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, made this known on Monday while featuring on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ monitored by The PUNCH.
Soyinka had said, “We may enter a phase of serial skirmishes which may get more and more violent and develop – I hate to use the word – may develop into a civil war and a very untidy and messy one at that. That is my biggest fear.”
Oyo and Ondo states have been in the eye of the storm lately over security challenges and the moves to check the activities of killer herdsmen.
A popular Yoruba rights activist, Sunday Adeyemo, well known as Sunday Igboho, had issued a seven-day notice to quit to herdsmen accused of crimes in the Ibarapa area of Oyo and enforced same.
Governor Rotimi Akerdolu of Ondo State also said herdsmen must register with the state government or vacate the state forest reserves.
When asked whether the Nobel Laureate and others with similar comments were beating the drum of war, the Afenifere spokesman said, “The Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is (well-) known. You cannot say that he is beating the drum of war or he is an alarmist. People are painting the reality that is on the ground. If what is happening in the South-West today, let’s say some Yoruba boys had gone to do one per cent of that in the north, there would have been a war in this country by now.
“So, when Professor Wole Soyinka is warning President Buhari now that if you don’t speak up now, what is going on will lead to civil war, he is not just talking in vain.”
Odumakin said the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was maintaining ‘civil silence’ over the heinous crimes committed by killer herders while the presidency continues to act as the mouthpiece of Fulani herdsmen.
“But the world and the international community should be interested in Nigeria at this moment and get Nigeria out of this mess.
“It is clear now that the possibility of internal solutions is getting limited, we don’t have an authority in leadership that can get us out of this mess. And the implication of a war in Nigeria for the rest of the world is very serious.
“Therefore, they should get on their feet now and begin to get interested in Nigeria to get us out of this mess that we are in,” he said.
PUNCH