OGUN: How soldiers escorted herdsmen to villages, flogged residents for rejecting herders

BRUTALITY was reportedly unleashed on some residents of villages in Yewa North Local Government Area when 10 gun-wielding soldiers escorted  some herdsmen to graze in their community.

The soldiers escorted the herdsmen to the villages to intimidate the residents who had earlier resisted an attempt by the herders to make their cattle graze in the community, according to a report in the Nation.

The villagers resisted the herders because they had allegedly been responsible for destruction of farms and the repeated attacks and killing of farmers in the community.

The herdsmen, who had earlier bowed to the resistance, returned about 2 pm on December 19, 2020, with soldiers from the 35 Artillery Brigade, Alamala, Abeokuta.

The soldiers stormed the palace of the traditional ruler of the community, Chief Olaleye Adigun, and warned the community not to prevent the herders from returning.

According to the Nation, one Seye Mulero who challenged the soldiers narrated the incident, saying, “Everyone was frightened by the actions and utterances of the soldiers but I summoned the courage to tell them how a Geography teacher, Yomi Akinola, and two students of Community High School, Ibeku, among others, were killed by the herdsmen while our women were raped and killed on their ways to the farm.”

His words angered the herdsmen who ordered the soldiers to deal with him, thereby leaving him with injuries after the beating.

The soldiers who conveyed the herdsmen in a military patrol van also visited the indigenes of Iselu, Ibeku, Agbon-Ojodu, Asa and other villages.