Community sends SOS over herders’ attacks

Residents of Oke Aro Community in Ondo State have been thrown into anxiety, as Fulani herdsmen continue to cause fear in them with  series of attacks.

The dwellers, it was gathered, had their first onslaught in the hands  of the pastoralists on August 10, 2021, and since then, they have known no peace.

During community’s encounter with the herders, about six  houses on Familusi street, were touched, while a member of the community whose name was given as Adekanle Oluwatunmise and his family were brutalised.

Oluwatunmise’s wife Mary, his two daughters, Evelyn and Victoria were not spared by the rampaging herders, who used guns and other dangerous weapons freely, without decorum.

The herders, sources said, have vowed to stop at nothing in their bid to create tension in the area, with their illicit destruction of crops on farmlands belonging to residents.

Worried by the development, chairman of the Community’s Development Association, Chief Kayode Lijoka, at a meeting he held in the community described the attacks by the herders as dastardly acts of terrorism.

Lijoka explained that the herdsmen and their cattle were first sighted on farmlands on the 10th of August last year, where they destroyed hectare of land, planted with arable and tree crops.

“The development has made us foreigners in our own land as our people are now relocating from their communities  for the safety of their lives.

“Some  residents of Oke Aro community, namely Ikumapayi Sayo, Adekanle Oluwatunmise and Tolani Joseph are currently on the waiting list of the herders, for allegedly reporting their escapade to the community, for action.