TIME was when the forest was the home of wealth and mirth. During those days, as the folk song says, the beloved wife stayed on the farm, not the homestead. You see, there were farms by the homestead but the real farms that housed the wealth of the race lay in the thick forests. A world on their own, the forests were the hunter’s office, and the soldier’s parade ground when war came. And speaking of war, it is now so close and no one should go to sleep with fire on the rooftop. The forests have been taken over by killers from distant lands, the foot-soldiers of the religious merchants up North who seek to foist alien practices on an unwilling land, using willing local slaves, including the buffoons who wear a crown while habitually rolling up a joint and causing theological strife. In Oswald Mtshalli’s fictive world, nightfall comes like a dreaded disease: in this land today, even noon is a vector of death. Women are being humbled in the forests and men slaughtered like inedible snakes. Our forests now host a thousand terrorists.
Death walks with the child, say the elders, but the child is unsuspecting. The seller of afterlife-pap is advertising her wares but our people are paying scant attention, weary with worry over mundane things. If the people called Igbo, Yoruba, Jukun and others are to see the next decade, they must take charge of their forests. The blood merchants lurking in the forests know no humanity or decency: they are prepared to kill until there is no one left to kill. How do you doubt people who feed newborns to dogs? In “Yorubaland encircled” (June 11, 2022), I warned: “There are not a few who believe that the despisers and would-be exterminators of the race have been arriving the length and breadth of the land in droves, taking up strategic positions. Travel on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and notice the shanties springing up in bushes. Danger lurks. The occupants may not always be compatriots in search of daily bread; they may be the dregs of an advancing army preparing the trimmings of assault.”
Events since then have validated my thesis. As Year 2025 dawned, the Oyo State governor, Mr Seyi Makinde, raised the alarm on the influx of terrorists into the South-West. His words were poignant and portentous: “During a security briefing this morning, I learnt that some bad elements from the North-West are relocating here due to military heat in their zones. But we will find and deal with them…During my birthday retreat in Fashola, bandits had camped less than two kilometres from where I was staying. This underscores the seriousness of the situation.”A week after this alarm, 10 suspected Boko Haram terrorists were arraigned in an Abuja court for planning to set up a cell of Boko Haram/ISWAP in Osun State. They would not have been picked up in former times, but this is a new day, and there had been increased surveillance in flash points, including Ijesa area in Osun State, Oke Ogun in Oyo State and Akoko axis of Ondo State. As listed by the DSS, the suspects were Adamu Abubakar (aka Abu Aisha), Babagana Bashuli, Muhammed Adam, Mustapha Abacha, Katuru Muhammed, Babakura Mallam Abacha, Muhammed Ciroma, Ali Gambo, Muhammed Umoru and Muhammed Bundi. Names definitely do tell a story. The merchants of death were arrested on December 16, 2024, “while undergoing training on how to manufacture and detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs),” the secret agency’s affidavit said. It added that they were members of the late Abubakar Shekau’s terrorist group who had relocated from Sambisa Forest to Osun State following the onslaught launched by the Nigerian Army. The demons had wanted to turn Christmas to hell.
Exactly a week ago today, the Ogun police commissioner, Lanre Ogunlowo, arrested 20 suspects in possession of dangerous weapons along the Ogun-Oyo boundary. The CP was on a routine patrol along the Eledumare, Bamboo, Fidiwo, Foursquare, Alapako and the Onigari axis on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway when he noticed certain young men alighting from a truck and moved closer to them. They had no clear destination and no satisfactory explanation for their movement, and so he ordered a search of their persons and belongings. Behold dangerous weapons, including “daggers, knives, cutlasses and objects suspected to be charms”. Please read “Yorubaland encircled” again. Are you still doubting the claim that an advancing army is upon us, ready to make our land an abattoir? CP Ogunlowo asked the public to remain vigilant and report suspicious activities for prompt intervention. I say: the public will either do that, or it will become history.
Cast your mind back to the half of 2021 and recall the Igangan, Oyo State, and Ishieke, Ebonyi State, massacres. In Alaigbo, specifically Odoka Ishieke, Obakota Ishieke and Ndiobàsi Ishieke communities, Fulani herdsmen launched a genocidal assault, cutting down 50 innocent souls in a fit of bestial rage. The victims included nursing mothers and babies, and for some time “corpses still lay in the bushes, from where policemen and health workers ferried them to town.” As Governor Dave Umahi remarked, the massacre was as gory as it was bestial: not even the little ones had been spared rape before they were murdered. But as Ebonyi was mourning, the sons of Lucifer struck in Ibarapaland. Igangan will never forget: corpses filled everywhere even as the smoke of burning houses, shops, a petrol station, and the palace of the town’s traditional ruler rose into the sky. The attackers rode into town in vehicles and motorcycles, armed with AK-47 rifles, machine guns, axes and machetes.
Said a resident of Igangan, Musa Lawal: “Almost all residents of Igangan sought refuge in the bush. We called security agencies but they didn’t respond to our distress calls. Only our local hunters, who were employed as members of the Amotekun security corps, confronted the Fulani herdsmen. They killed more than 30 people here. Some of the attackers who were wounded were taken away by their people. They razed more than 100 shops, a filling station and a gas refill station.” Following that incident, the Oyo State chairman of Amotekun, Brigadier-General Ajibola Togun (retd), revealed that some foreign Fulani invaders were hiding in forest reserves in the South-West, preparing to launch a full-scale assault on the zone. He was spot on.
Did you read the report this week about the Ondo State Amotekun intercepting 114 persons found wandering inside Ondo forests? Like the boys caught on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the suspects could not explain “what they were doing inside the forests after they were dropped off by two trucks.” Hear the Ondo Amotekun Commander, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye: “The Governor of Ondo State, Hon. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, has directed that individuals without legitimate business in the deep forests should be evacuated and sent back.” Thank you, Lucky Orimisan. May your feet never stumble.
Reclaiming the forests is vital to seeing tomorrow. Those who want to witness tomorrow don’t leave their forests to foreigners.
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