The Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba Land, Iba Aare Gani Adams, has called for serious protection and security of farmer, farmlands and forests in the Southwest states and the entire zone to avert famine.
Adams who doubles as the national coordinator of Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) said food production and agriculture businesses might suffer serious setbacks if farmers cannot go to their farms without the fear of being attacked.
The OPC leader who made the call in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital at the national coordinating council open air meeting of the group expressed their readiness to partner with the state governors in securing the region.
The meeting, according to him, was designed to brief, orientate members on issues affecting the organisation and how far it has gone in its operation, to instill discipline and effective coordination in them and to be of good character in the society, all these and more are what this council meeting is meant for.
Adams also stressed the need for the people of the region to be intentional in the promotion of our cultural tourism and said the group through Oodua People’s Union (OPU) is now spreading across the world with chapters in 103 countries.
Speaking further on the security in the land, he said, “To ensure that our farmers go to their farms without fear, there is an element of farming in Yorubaland and if we don’t protect our farmers, agricultural businesses and its commercial activities will be seriously affected and go down. So, we have to protect them and also our youths wherever they are.
“There are challenges in terms of security in the Southwest region and people always come to me to ask of what I am doing about it as Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland. Governors as chief security officers of their respective states are saddled with the responsibility of securing lives and property. And we have written letters to the governors that the OPC needs to partner with them on the issue of security through the 14 Southwest Security Stakeholders Groups but they are yet to respond to this and we keep having security threats in some of our communities through some criminal herdsmen, bandits, terrorists and other criminal groups.
“So, we are appealing to our governors to let us have synergy and we are ready to partner with them to rid the region of crimes and criminality. We are not out to intrude on their already established security architecture but to support them security wise as a private security organization and outfit, so that we can have sanity, peace and tranquility in our communities and region as a whole,” he said.
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