Ife crisis: We’ve assembled powerful defence team for 21 suspects ―Afenifere

Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, said on Wednesday that it has assembled a powerful team of lawyers to enforce the fundamental human rights of 21 indigenes of Ile-Ife, Osun State, who were paraded few days ago in Abuja as suspects over the recent clashes between the host community and Arewa settlers.

This is just as the group vowed to resist what it termed as the undue deployment of Federal might to settle ethnic scores in the country.

Afenifere said this in a statement made available to the Nigerian Tribune in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, noting that it resolved to assemble a legal team as a first step to enforce the fundamental human rights of the affected 21 Ife indigenes following their illegal, unconstitutional and sectional parade by the Nigeria Police.

“Following the illegal, unconstitutional and sectional parade of 21 Ife indigenes over the recent clashes between the host community and Arewa settlers, Afenifere vowed to resist the undue deployment of federal might to settle ethnic scores.”

“As a first step in this regard, we have assembled a powerful team of Lawyers to enforce the fundamental human rights of the 21 abducted Yoruba persons,” Afenifere said.

The group while expressing appreciation to numerous lawyers of Yoruba extraction who had taken up this challenge to defend to paraded suspects pro bono, contended that, “It is a settled law that the investigation and trial of suspects must take place at the scene of the crime,” Afenifere said.

According to the group, “The legal team will challenge this subversion of due process, while political pressure continues on why two communities will be involved in a fight and only members of one community will be put on trial by a police whose leadership is of the same ethnic extraction with the other party in the conflict.”

“We restate the fact that the Arewa group started the killings in Ife by killing a Yoruba young man. This is clearly missing in the skewed report by the police.”

“We appeal to our people to be calm while we pursue the legal angle to this challenge to our pride as a people as the first step,” the group added.