FOUNDER of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD) and legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, will be one of the keynote speakers at an interactive session on the increasing spate of attacks and kidnappings by suspected Fulani herdsmen on Ekiti State.
The interactive session, organised by a pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, the Yoruba KO’YA Movement, would hold on Thursday with the members of vigilante groups and hunter associations on how to checkmate the renewed cases of kidnappings and destruction of farmlands in the state by suspected herdsmen.
In a statement issued by the National Director of Organisation and Publicity of the group, Mr Maxwell Adeleye, other speakers at the event would include the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe, co-founder of Yoruba KO’YA Movement, Otunba ‘Deji Osibogun, the Iyaloja of Ekiti State, Chief (Mrs) Waje Oso and others.
Adeleye said the event would be chaired by the Alaaye of Efon Alaaye, Oba (Dr) Emmanuel Adesanya Aladejare, adding the aims and objectives of the parley was to examine the causes of herdsmen and farmers crisis and the effects of the menace of Fulani herdsmen on food security and safety of lives and property in Ekiti State.
The statement further noted that the management options of the Fulani herdsmen and farmers’ crisis, as it affected food security in the state, would be discussed.
“Yorub KO’YA Movement is worried by the recent cases of kidnapping around Ekiti and Osun states boundary. that the parley is necessary to prevent Ekiti State and Yorubaland, by extension, from being encircled by the murderous Fulani Herdsmen who some of them have now abandoned the business of grazing to kidnapping of their host and destruction of people’s farmlands.
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“The parley will afford all those whose lives are affected to gain an understanding of how Fulani herdsmen/farmers’ crisis can be amazingly curtailed,” the statement read.
Participants expected at the event included are self-determination groups such as members of hunters and vigilante groups, market men and women associations, farmers, youths, students and entrepreneurs with a vast interest in agriculture.
The group, which would inaugurate the state chapter of its steering committee at the event, would also donate security gadgets such as patrol vans, raincoats, boots, torchlights and whistles, among others, to the vigilante and hunters in the state at the parley.
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