A United States Of America returnee, Mrs Olajumoke Awosika, has narrated how herdsmen terrorised farmers and destroyed water from the two main rivers in the Ibaayin village, Elekuru-Olorisaoko axis of the Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State.
Speaking with The PUNCH, the 57-year-old caterer said a Fulani herder who owns 200 acres, alongside his battalion, have unleashed unimaginable terror and horror on farmers in the area within the last few months since the beginning of the activism of popular Yoruba rights campaigner, Sunday Adeyemo also known as Sunday Igboho.
Awisika, who started organic farming five years ago after she couldn’t get some fresh farm produce in the market for her catering business, lamented the criminal activities of herdsmen in the farming community.
She said, “The first day they (herders) entered, they destroyed farms. This was on February 10, 2021. As soon as they (herdsmen) entered, they went into people’s farm, harvested their plantains for their cows and uprooted cassava on their farms. Those are farms around me. These are old men, people in their 60s, 70s and the herdsmen destroyed on a massive scale. They ate the crops, marched their cows to the two main rivers in the village, very clear and clean water that the villagers drink, the herders destroyed the water completely; their cows defecated and polluted the water.”
According to her, after tracing the tracks of the cows to the Fulani herder who owns over 200 acres of land in the village, the villagers told the herder to ranch his cows on his expansive land but he would rather prefer the cattle to enter other people’s farmlands to graze.