THE Pan-Yoruba sociopolitical group, Afenifere, on Monday, kicked as the police paraded 38 suspects arrested for their roles in the Ile-Ife mayhem on March 8.
This came as the police said the crisis left at least 46 people dead and 96 injured.
A statement by the police spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood, said 20 of the 38 suspects initially arrested for their alleged roles in the mayhem would be prosecuted.
He named the suspects as Akeem Eluwole, Kuburat Eluwole, Ayoola Abimbola, Bello Wahab, Taiwo Fakuwajo, Ademola Ademiluyi, Peter Omisope, Isaac Adefisan, Kehinde Adelekan and Elufisan Akintoye.
Others were Isaac Omisanmi, Olanrewaju Daniel, Seyi Akinyobo, Adejube Monday, Olanrewaju Adebayo, Akanbi Adeyinka, Obimankinde Samuel, Zakariyu Abdulyekini, Bamidele Elusanmi, Jimoh Sakiru and Clement Kehinde.
Two of the suspects were arrested in Ibadan, Oyo State and another two in Lagos, the police said.
Afenifere, however, objected to the parade the suspects in Abuja, saying that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), “is hundreds of miles away from the scene of the conflict.”
The group, in a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune in Lagos by its national publicity secretary, Mr Yinka Odumakin, maintained that the right place to investigate the crisis was Osun State and not Abuja.
The group, while demanding that the suspects be immediately transferred to Osun State, vowed that it would resist what it described as ethnic vengeance through the police except it saw arrests from the Fulani aggressors in the Ife conflict.
“The Abuja show is undue sectional deployment of federal might to intimidate and harass a party in the conflict. It is a direct fallout from the threat of the interior minister after he visited Ife.
“The minister is not on record to have visited any scene of conflict where Fulani herdsmen have inflicted massacres on their host communities in the Southern Kaduna and Middle Belt communities since he was appointed,” the statement read.
“How come there is no member of the Arewa community paraded by the police. We reject the one-eyed magistrate that the police has become in this matter and which, we do not shy to say, is as a result of the ethnic composition of the police presently.
While parading the suspect, the Force spokesman said the violence also “resulted in the loss of innocent lives and destruction of properties worth millions of naira.
“Eighty-one of the injured have since been discharged from the hospital, while 15 were still receiving treatment as of Monday afternoon,” he said.
Moshood also dismissed reports that police conducted indiscriminate arrests of residents in the town, saying officers apprehended suspects based on intelligence gatherings.
“That is why eighteen suspects found not to be involved in the crisis were released unconditionally,” he said.
Meanwhile, reports from the town on Monday morning said normal activities had returned.
Notwithstanding, Moshood said the police would keep a special intervention team on the ground across the state, while urging the residents to give maximum support to law enforcement authorities.
In a related development, prominent indigenes of Ile-Ife, under the aegis of Ife Klub 1 Worldwide, has urged the federal and Osun governments to come to the aid of the victims of the recent crisis by paying them compensations.
President of the club, Mr Adebisi Ogundipe, made the call while addressing journalists at Ladi Lawal Press Centre, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, saying there was the need for the government at all levels to intervene as the victims had host all they had worked for.
Ogundipe, who was flanked by Chief Ayoola Adeyefa, Mr Adetokunbo Alex Duduyemi, Mr Goke Olayeni, among others, also called on law-enforcement agencies to immediately arraign in court all those who were believed to have started and participated in the crisis.
The group president, who decried the manner of arrest, however, said those now in the custody in Osogbo, the Osun State capital and Abuja must be arraigned and allowed to go through proper procedure of law.
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