Yoruba nation: Ladoja opposes Igboho, others, says agitators are ignorant

A former Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rasheed Ladoja has  urged those  clamouring for Yoruba nation to have a rethink so as to avoid needless war.

Ladoja is generally known to be the political godfather of the Yoruba freedom fighters and a leading crusader of Yoruba nation, Chief Sunday Igboho.

While calling  for understanding to prevent the situation from degenerating into anarchy, the former governor noted that people only know the beginning of war and many people don’t know the end.

He said some of the agitators for Yoruba Nation don’t even know what it means.

Senator Ladoja spoke after observing the Thursday Eid prayers to mark the end of Ramadan fasting .

The Eid prayers which held at the University of Ibadan Prayer Ground, UI was attended by notable Muslim Faithful including Senator Teslim Folarin (Oyo Central) and Dapo Lam-Adeshina (former House of Representative members), scholars and members of the UI Muslim community.

He said, “Nobody knows how the war in Syria started and it takes years . They have to take it easy.  There will be time God will gives us good leaders, and there will also be time God will gives us leaders that are not as good. If we want to go because of our challenges, we may need to sit down and talk things out on the way to go.

“When people are agitating, who says those in the North are not planning to go too? But let’s assume that people in the South are talking too much,  while people in the North are acting too much.”

Speaking on the decision of the Southern governors to ban open grazing across their regions, Ladoja said open grazing is not sustainable as a practice.

He added that, governments need to do more in terms of implementing the ban on open grazing which he said had been passed in most states of the federation.

“Most of us know that open grazing is not sustainable, we are still practicing what was been practiced  50 years ago, let’s find a way of going for a sustainable systems. The number of cows people are eating today has increased, all over the world, there are more cows than human being, yet, they maintained it without grazing openly.

“ All over the world, many countries don’t have open grazing, we should also adopt and we should now see cow herding as a business that should be taken seriously.

“I support ban on open grazing, there is existence of open grazing law even in Oyo state but unfortunately, we have not seen it implemented because we still see cows roaming the streets. But maybe now that all of the Southern governors have adopted it, maybe the implementation will start in earnest.

“If people keep saying Fulani herdsmen and crisis about, maybe if there is no more open grazing, there will not be so much noise about Fulani herdsmen again.  Look at the situation in Benue. If we are able to tackle the issue of open grazing first, lets see if the issue of insecurity, banditry and other vices will not be addressed,” he stated.

Also, Senator Fatai Buhari,  representing Oyo North in the National Assembly, has called for a national re-orientation as a measure in tackling insecurity.

Senator Buhari said “Everyone of us must know that, we have no other country than Nigeria. Nigeria is our country and our home, we should try and do internal security for ourself. It is not the government that will come and do everything for us, we have to watch around and report to the security operatives.

“This is one of the reasons I am advocating for local policing. If we have local police we will know each other or anyone who is not one of us.  We know each other. We know each other within the vicinity where we stayed. It is sad that night life is gone completely and we have lost something fundamental.

“We need to do, what is called re-orientation. Re-orientation from the schools, the society and for everybody. It is a general problem.

“In the eight Assembly, we discussed security issues over 30 times and is this present 9th assembly we have discussed it about 50 times. We say they should change Service Chiefs, they have being changed, even if they continue changing them, we have to do what is called re-orientation, let everybody be vigilant.”