Oyo community petitions Onovo over robbery attacks

Aguo community, which is situated in the Oyo East Local Government Area of Oyo State, consists of about 40 villages, but they claimed about 15 of the villages have been deserted by the residents who are mainly farmers. In their petition, the community leaders and residents lamented that they had been under the siege of […]

Aguo community, which is situated in the Oyo East Local Government Area of Oyo State, consists of about 40 villages, but they claimed about 15 of the villages have been deserted by the residents who are mainly farmers.

In their petition, the community leaders and residents lamented that they had been under the siege of incessant raids from the itinerant herdsmen for over three months. They further alleged that their villages were no longer habitable as a result of the incessant raids by the attackers.

The Baale of Aguo, Pa Salawu Oloyede, while narrating the ordeals of his people to journalists expressed concern that the villages could no longer sleep with their two eyes closed in the night because the robbers who always invaded their community had unleashed unrestrained terror on them many times by threatening them with guns, matcheting them, stealing their mobile phones, money, shooting their domestic animals and forcing the women to prepare delicacies for them with it.

According to the Baale, the herdsmen always emerged from the bushes and storm the villages around 11 p.m. Most times, he further alleged, they came in large number of between 10 and 15 and surround the villages before dispossessing the people of their belongings.

He said, “Sometimes, because they were sure the police would not be around, they would force our wives to cook for them and they would stay with us till day break. If there was no sufficient meat in their pots, the robbers would shoot any of the goats they see around and hurriedly burn it and force our women to prepare it for them. We have cried to the Oyo Area Commander, who sent some of his men. We took them around the routes through which the robbers usually invade our villages, but since then, no security arrangements have been put in place. We are now calling on the Inspector General of the Police Ogbonanya Onovo and the Oyo state Police Commissioner, Alhaji Bola Adisa Bolanta to help us send his men to patrol our villages to save us from these robbers.”

In reaction, however, Oyo State Commissioner of Police, Mr Bola Adisa Bolanta told newsmen that his command had been trying its best by responding to such incidents.

“We have arrested one of the robbers terrorizing those areas and he is currently undergoing interrogation. He has given us sufficient information that will lead to the arrest of about nine others. Last two weeks, we killed one along that road. We are not relenting. But the people should always get us informed of any strange happening around their area, so that we can take immediate action to protect them,” the commissioner of police stated.