You warned in 2022 that terrorists were setting up camps in the South-West. Despite repeated alerts, gunmen attacked three schools in Oriire, Oyo State, on Friday, killing two people and abducting teachers and students. What failures by the authorities made this attack possible?
The office of the Aare Ona Kakanfo has been limited to just giving out information without being given room for collaboration. I have more information that I can give to law enforcement agencies. Six months ago, we tried to work on our intelligence across the entire South-West region. We spotted many local governments where there was an influx of these terrorists — I won’t call them bandits again. If you call them bandits, you are playing down the kind of criminals they are. We spotted many local governments and we documented it.
How many local governments were affected?
We have 137 local government areas in the South-West, and we spotted not remnants of terrorists, but a lot of terrorists in no fewer than 40 local governments. We have many terrorists that have infiltrated those local government areas.Did your intelligence reports produce any action?
We kept that document to ourselves because we were more confident that working with state governments, which are the institutions governing the states, would yield results compared to working with law enforcement agents. As a result, we called for collaboration with state governments for the past two years. This is a government that knows your antecedents, knows that you have a structure across Yorubaland, even beyond Yorubaland and in some northern states, yet refuses to talk to you, refuses to agree with you, or even assist you despite being in power and benefitting from security votes. Yet they didn’t call to discuss with you. So, you have to bear in mind that the only assistance you can give to Yoruba people is to talk to the media and give little information that some states have been infiltrated and that there would be attacks in those states, because you are not helping matters by divulging the entire information.For me to raise the alarm that some states have been infiltrated and that terrorists would strike means that the information was based on intelligence and that it would happen. Precisely in November last year, I raised the alarm during the Ajagunmale Festival in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, that terrorists had moved from Kogi to attack Ondo and Ekiti states. This was apart from the one I raised in 2022 about the infiltration of Yorubaland. And what is happening in the two states? An Oba was killed in Ondo State about two months ago. Now these people have shifted a little to Oyo State, and we have witnessed about two or three attacks in Ibadan. Definitely, they are determined to move to Lagos.
There was a time I raised the issue of Lagos. Just three days ago, I got information that there was an influx of terrorists into a cattle market after the Lagos boundary into Ogun State. And if care is not taken, anything can happen in Lagos. Also, from the information we have, the target of some of these terrorists is Lagos. They are looking for a way for something to happen simultaneously in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states. I just saw the video of a prophet saying we should be watchful because anything can happen in Yorubaland. I was just laughing. This goes beyond when a soothsayer gives you a spiritual message. This is what we have gathered from intelligence.
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NEWS NOW:
The insecurity is now national and only concerted efforts by the government at various levels and the people can solve it. Enough of rhetorics, let the various security outfits be adequately equipped. Regional security arrangements should be strengthened.