Apex Pan-Yoruba sociocultural organisation, Afenifere, on Thursday charged governors from the South-West zone of the country urgently hold a meeting to map out strategies to expel bandits from the region.
The call is coming on the heels of the alarm raised by the Oyo State governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde on the influx of bandits into the South-West states.
Makinde had at the 2025 annual inter-faith service for workers held at the Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, on Monday, January 6, disclosed that bandits being dislodged from the North-West of Nigeria were infiltrating his state.
“During a security briefing this morning, I learned that some bad elements from the North-West are relocating here due to military heat in their zones.
“During my birthday retreat in Fashola, bandits had camped less than two kilometres from where I was staying. This underscores the seriousness of the situation,” Governor Makinde had said.
In a statement made available to LEADERSHIP in Akure, the Ondo State capital, National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Comrade Jare Ajayi, called on governments in the region to take the security of their areas more seriously in view of the latest revelation concerning the new influx of bandits into the region.
Ajayi stated that, “a disclosure of this nature coming from the Chief Security Officer of a state is not something to be treated with levity.”
He said, “As a matter of urgency, the governments must hold a meeting to map out strategies to expel the bandits from the region and to ensure that such elements do not infiltrate Yorubaland at any time again.
“For these objectives to be achieved, there is the need to carry certain groups along. These are the security agencies that will implement whatever security decisions reached, traditional rulers and heads of local vigilantes known as ‘Ode’.”
Ajayi added that whatever strategies that were devised should include functional up-to-date equipment for those who would be on the fields, attractive incentives and the deployment of modern technologies to assist in identifying the bandits and their hideouts.
While urging security agencies and citizens not to take the issue of security lightly, the Afenifere spokesperson urged the traditional rulers and community leaders in different parts of Yorubaland not to keep quiet whenever they notice any indication suggestive of security threat.
“For example, until the governor made the revelation on Monday, such grave security danger was unknown to members of the public, yet there are people living in Fashola area where the bandits were reported to have established a camp.
“It is not unlikely that similar camps could be found in some other parts of the South-West, hence the need for urgent and effective action,” Ajayi said.
