I have been reluctant to write anything about the clash
between the Yoruba and the Hausa Fulani in the ancient city of Ile-Ife and in
which far many more people were killed than anyone cares to publicly admit.
I was reluctant because Ile-Ife happens to be the home of my
ancestors and indeed my hometown and for four generations my family have had a
stake there and have been making meaningful contributions to the affairs and
development of the community.
Consequently I have an emotional attachment to the town and
when I hear that a son or daughter of Ife is in trouble or is in any way hurt
or harmed it hurts me to the marrow.
This is because the Ifes are more to me than just my
kinsmen. I consider them to be part of my family and deep down I love each and
everyone of them whether they be friend or foe.
Yet despite all this, on this occassion, I am constrained to
set emotion aside, look at the cold facts and write about this ugly and tragic
episode.
I compelled to do so out of a sense of loyalty, honor and
morality. This is especially so given the fact that the victims in this
conflict appear to have no voice and no-one appears to be ready to speak for
them. I am ready to be that voice. I owe my people, history and posterity that
much and I have no apology for doing so.
The crisis in Ile-Ife started when a group of Hausa Fulani
men molested and physically abused a young Yoruba woman by the name of Kubura
and almost killed her in the process.
She went home covered in blood and when her husband, Akeem
(a leading member of the NURWT in Ile-Ife) found out what she had been
subjected to he went back to the Hausa-Fulani quarters (commonly known as Sabo)
with her in tow to find out why she had been subjected to such barbaric
treatment and who the perpetrators were.
On getting there instead of being received with sympathy and
remorse the husband himself was viciously stabbed and almost lost his life.
After that the Hausa Fulanis in Sabo went on the rampage
killing many sons and daughters of Ile-Ife their host community and in the
process they proceeded to behead a young Yoruba man and they paraded his head
on a pole through the streets.
This infuriated the people of Ile-Ife and they retaliated by
attacking the perpetrators. After that all hell broke loose and many Hausa
Fulanis were killed.
I have been reliably informed that at the end of the day
approximately 300 Hausa Fulani’s were killed and buried in mass graves whilst
over 70 per cent of the houses in Sabo were burnt down. The Ifes lost about 30
in the conflict. This is a tragedy of monumental proportions for each and every
one of us.
The casualty rate on both side is unacceptable and I
wholeheartedly condemn the taking of human life for ANY reason unless it is in
self-defence.
As sad and tragic as this event may be we must point the fingers
at the right places and place the blame for the conflagration where it belongs.
Many have failed in this respect.
For example instead of blaming the aggressors for the crisis
and the carnage and warning them to stop killing our people and raping and
beating our women, Governor Rauf Aregbesola has been shamelessly begging the
Hausa Fulani and saying such an attack will never take place again.
It is right and proper for him, and indeed all responsible
leaders, to call for restraint, to sue for peace and to encourage people not to
break the law or take the law into their own hands in the name of retaliation
and I must commend the efforts of our most reverred traditional ruler, his
Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja 11 in
this respect.
However it is equally important for Aregbesola to condemn
the aggressors, the wife-beaters, the rapists and the murderers and to tell
them in simple and clear language that Ile-Ife, the source and cradle of the
Yoruba race, or indeed anywhere else in Osun state or the south west is NOT the
sort of place that they can commit such atrocities and get away with it.
We are not Southern Kaduna or Agatu in Benue state. We find
it difficult to sit by idly and watch our people being slaughtered in cold
blood. And neither do we bow down before our oppressors.
There is something deep in the Yoruba spirit and soul and
particularly that of the Ifes that resists and rebels against injustice,
brutality, barbarity and subjugation and the history of the Yoruba proves that.
We are slow to anger but irresistable in battle and the fact
is that for one hundred years before the British colonial masters arrived on
our shores we were fighting brutal civil wars against one another.
We know the tragedy, the pain, the terror, the evil and the
horrendous sacrifice that comes with war and conflict and though we avoid it as
best as we can, we never shy away from it once it is forced upon us.
Worse still the youth of Ile Ife, many of whom are veterans
of numerous Ife-Modakeke wars, are hardened and battle-ready any day and any
time.
This is indeed a potentially volatile and dangerous mix. In
this respect relevant and insighful are the words of Oloye Gani Adams, the
leader of the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), when he said, just yesterday, that
“the Yoruba cannot be conquered!”.
And if anyone has any doubts about that they should consider
the sheer courage and unconquerable spirit of a loyal anf faithful son of the
Yoruba like Ayo Fayose, the Governor of Ekiti state.
This is where Aregbesola missed it. This is what he appears
to have forgotten and this is what slipped his mind.
This is the point that he failed to appreciate and instead
of doing so he chose to tread the disgraceful path of servility and appeasement
whilst sacrificing the lives and interests of his own people.
Though I am a firm believer in the right of self-defence, I
do not seek to incite anyone to violence and neither do I advocate, condone or
encourage it in any shape or form.
I am simply stating the facts and pointing out that it is
important to call an aggressor an aggressor and call a spade a spade.
My old friend Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso who is the former
Governor of Kano state then entered the ring and made matters worse.
He went to Ile-Ife, met with the Hausa Fulani community and
had the nerve and effontry to tell Aregbesola that our people must pay
compensation for the killing of his people: sounds familiar?
I remember General Muhammadu Buhari’s words to Governor Lam
Adesina in 2001 when, after a conflict between the Hausa Fulani and the Yoruba
in Oyo, he asked “why are your people killing my people?”
Kwakwanso came to Ile-Ife 16 years later, demanded an answer
to the same question and asked for compensation!
What a gratuitous insult this is delivered at a time when
everyone is suing for peace and calling for calm. If the truth be told who
should pay compensation to who? Who is accomodating who? Who did the attacking?
Who killed first?
Who drew first blood? Whose land and soil is it and who are
the guests and visitors? You come into a man’s house and enter his land and you
start killing members of his family and people and then you ask him to pay you
compensation?
Does this make sense? How many people did the Fulani compensate
after they slaughtered the indigenees of Southern Kaduna, Benue, Enugu, Abia,
Delta,Taraba, Lagos, Plateau, Kwara, Kogi, Adamawa, Nassarawa, Niger, Edo,
Ebonyi, Ondo, Ekiti and numerous other states in the country in their own land?
How many did they compensate after the sectarian and
barbaric killings of Christians and southern Muslims all over the north over
the last 56 years?
How many did they compensate after the pogroms, mass murder
and genocide perpetuated against the Igbo all over the north just before the
civil war in 1966?
Who should apologise and who should compensate who?
Honestly I cannot stomach all this. It would have been
better for Kwakwanso to start with an apology for the beating, raping, carnage
and barbarity that his Hausa Fulani brothers indulged in and unleashed on their
generous and accomodating hosts before the fighting started.
Do some people have a greater right to life than others in
Nigeria? Is the blood of some more precious than the blood of others?
Do the lives of the Ife people mean nothing to these people?
Does anyone not feel a deep sense of outrage about what the Hausa Fulani did
and how this whole thing started?
Are we supposed to brush it under the carpet out of fear and
our accursed desire for peace at ANY price?
How do we expect the woman that was beaten and whose husband
was almost stabbed to death for attempting to defend her honor to feel? How do
we expect the family of the young man that was beheaded and the families of the
other Yorubas that were killed to take all this?
Are we not dancing on the graves of those that were
slaughtered for no just cause? What does that say about us as leaders and as a
people? Are we not meant to defend the weak and stand up for the oppressed and
the defenceless?
