Oni of Ife visits Aso Rock on insecurity in Nigeria

Following his invitation by the presidency, Oni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, was in the Aso Rock Villa Thursday where he alerted Nigerians to the machinations of war-mongers, who are contriving to cause unrest in the country.

He spoke after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari behind closed doors at the Presidential Villa.

It would be recalled that the monarch recently called on the Yoruba race to rise up and defend their land from invaders, in reference to herdsmen, a day after the brutal murder of the daughter of Fasoranti, the Afenifere leader.

The Oba, who said he was in the villa on behalf of his colleagues in the Southwest, frowned at political elites misinforming and instigating youths to beat the war drum in the country.

“Before I came here I discussed with the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, who has been there for close to 50 years and we cannot tore away such a very massive experience in terms of knowing the structure of Nigeria.

“And also by virtue of that, Alafin is in constant touch with Owojale and very much we are all on the same page.

“So, I’m here and I had a discussion that is very fruitful with Mr President about what we all know – the security situation in the country. We made him to know that the issue at hand in the Southwest is real – the issue of insecurity.

“We live in the remote and rural areas of the south western part of the country, most of those bushes and those forests are being occupied by strange people and we have decided to take it upon ourselves to try as much as possible to work with the government to fish them out.

“Why I’m here again is, everybody is beating the war drum; we don’t want war; who can stand war? We want something better for our youths.

“We should better use them for something good other than shouting war and anarchy – we don’t want that. And to the glory of God we told Mr President that and he is on the same page with us,” the oba said.

Continuing, he said, “We should make sure that things are right. Mr President has actually given good directives to all the security chiefs especially the Inspector-General of Police.

They will visit all traditional rulers’ palaces that are very sensitive in the southwest with immediate effect – he is going to give that directive. “We need to work very closely with them and every other security agency in the country.

We all must put them to use now; it is very important for us to put them to use and work with the locals,’’ he said and urged leaders and politicians to be wary and careful while commenting on the country’s security developments as some of their utterances may throw things out of proportion.