Ogun, Ondo Trade Words Over Alleged Encroachment, Attacks

The Ondo State government has disputed claims by neighbouring Ogun State government that its citizens were encroaching on Ogun territory and launching attacks on its people in Irokun Kingdom on Ogun-Waterside Local Government Area.

The state government described the allegations of encroachment into some communities in Ogun State as unfounded, insisting that those areas in question constitutionally belong to Ondo State.

Recall that the Ogun State Government, through the Deputy Governor, Mrs Noimot Salako-Oyedele, recently alleged that the Government of Ondo State attacked its citizens in Irokun kingdom

According to her, the encroachment on Ogun communities comes with assaults on its citizens, most especially residents of Irokun kingdom in Ogun-Waterside Local Government Area, and the culprits were allegedly from the Ilaje end of Ondo State.

But, in a swift response, the Ondo State government described the allegation as “patently false and has become a pattern of alarming propaganda by the Ogun State Government as a strategy to reinforce their false territorial claim on Irokun, Obinehin, Idigbengben and Araromi seaside.”

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Speaking through the commissioner for Information and Orientation, Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, the Ondo government further described the declaration by the Deputy Governor of Ogun State that on no account will Ogun State Government cede an inch of this land to Ondo State as “comedic.”

Addressing journalists in Akure, the state capital on Friday, Ademola-Olateju stated that the admonition of the Deputy Governor of Ogun State urging the Ondo state government to call her citizens to order on allegations that they were attacking their counterparts from Ogun State and linking same to the administrative actions of the state government was “deceptive”.

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While saying that the state government was ever conscious of and irrevocably committed to the fundamental duty of protecting the lives and properties of its citizens, Ademola-Olateju noted that the state government was irrevocably committed to securing the lives and properties of its residents.

“With high sense of responsibility that Ondo and Ogun state are sister states of the same Yoruba ethnic stock. For the most part, we have been under common political structures since the creation of the Western Region.

“What is now regarded as territorial disputes predated the creation of both states and have always been managed with the highest sense of responsibility by both states.

“Ondo and Ogun States share common boundaries in several parts but contrary to the allegations of the Ogun State Deputy Governor, the upsurge of conflicts in the coastal areas is traceable to the activities of officials of the Ogun State Government in areas which are under the undisputed administrative territories of Ondo State.

“For the avoidance of doubt, communities such as Irokun, Obineyin, Araromi, etc which featured prominently in the Press Conference by the Deputy Governor are not in dispute between Ondo and Ogun States.

“These towns are legally and administratively within Ondo State territory and the towns have the formidable presence of the state government which attests to the administrative control of the state over these areas,” the Commissioner stated.