There is a renewed agitation over the recent incursion into Ekiti State town of Emure by 10 armed herdsmen and their subsequent arrest as the state’s Commissioner of Police’s statement that the interlopers are herders is being vehemently disputed by the inhabitants of the town.

Emure Ekiti, headquarters of Emure Local Government Area in Ekiti State, was on Thursday, February 20, thrown into pandemonium as it was reported that a posse of herdsmen stormed the town, allegedly armed with guns.

Inhabitants of the town reportedly raised an alarm and the group of armed men were subsequently arrested and transferred to the State Police Command headquarters in Ado-Ekiti for investigations. Barely a week later, the Ekiti State Commissioner of Police, Amba Asuquo, gave an official statement on the case.

They claimed to be hunters and had been charged to court. The issue of invasion was not to my knowledge,

said Asuquo.

Asked on what ground were the herdsmen charged to court, he said:

They were appropriately arraigned before the court on the basis of weapons that I think were not lawful.

Following the police statement, the people of Emure-Ekiti, responded vehemently in a no-holds-barred manner. A few of them who spoke with Saturday Sun were blunt in their opinions, claiming the suspects had come to their town with sinister agenda. One of the respondents, Mrs. Bola Idowu, avowed that the strange men were anything but hunters.

She opined:

They don’t look like hunters at all. Hunters, all the way from the North, in that number and all of them with guns? That is unbelievable.

Another respondent, Mr. Ola Kassim, opined that their outlooks didn’t suggest they were hunters.

They didn’t look like hunters and the guns they all carried were not suggestive of that at all,

he asserted.

They came for a mission which God had helped us to uncover. We want proper investigations conducted on them.

Another respondent, Mr. Kayode Osho, applauded the efforts of the town on how they quickly rallied to enforce the arrest of the interlopers.

It was God who delivered us from them. The way they stormed the town was shocking.

Source: The Sun

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.