Afenifere Rejects Police Report on Ife Crisis, Says It is One-Sided

Controversy has been trailing police activities and report on the recent clash between the Hausa and Yoruba community in Ile-Ife as Yoruba groups have been casting aspersion on the investigation of the police.

Days after the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) had accused the police of selective arrest and indiscriminate arrest of Ife indigenes on the crisis, another Yoruba group, the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) have berated the police on its investigation on the clash.

The group rejected the police report on the crisis and accused the security agency of bias and not conducting thorough investigation on the crisis.

ARG, according to a press release issued by its Publicity Secretary of the ARG, Mr Kunle Famoriyo, on Tuesday described the police report as unfair and one-sided, stating that the police have only been arresting Yorubas in Ife in connection with the clash.

The group maintained that the Yoruba people are lovers of peace but also haters of injustice in any appearance or form, calling on the Osun State Government to set up a commission of enquiry into the Ife crisis.

ARG said it was disappointed in the report of the police, saying that had looked forward to a thorough police investigation establishing the immediate and remote causes of the crisis but it appears that no thorough and trustworthy report would come from the police.

It said: “We are however shocked at the outcome of a purported police investigation which from all indications would now appear one-sided and tending towards a predetermined outcome.

“For instance, the sin of one of those paraded, Obimakinde Samuel, according to police information, was that he was ‘found with a fresh cut on his head suspected to have been inflicted on him during the crisis.’ Mr. Obimakinde, according to police information, is obviously a victim.

“In a violent clash that involves deaths, injuries, and arson on all sides, the Nigeria Police are saying that Yoruba people are the only culprits, that Yoruba people attacked their own people, and burnt the houses of their own people. Who would believe this?”

The group declared that the Ife crisis was not an ethnic issue even though the police was in the effort to make it one, saying “It disturbingly raised the question of partisanship and cast a doubt on the police institution.”

“What is desired is a thorough and trustworthy investigation but it appears that is impossible to get from the Nigeria Police that have failed to produce a single arrest in cases of perpetual marauders and killers in Southern Kaduna, Benue and Enugu States but have within a week found a sudden ‘efficiency’ in the Ile-Ife crisis”, the group stated.

The group pointed out that the police failed to make any arrest when a similar crisis occurred at Mile 12, Lagos, last year during which Yoruba people were killed and their properties razed and when a LASTMA official, Tajudeen Bakare, was brazenly murdered in the process of enforcing the law.

“We would not allow our people to be deliberately made a scapegoat of the inherent failure of Nigeria’s nationality.

“We therefore call on the Government of the State of Osun to inaugurate a commission of enquiry to establish the remote and immediate causes in a manner that will engender truth and reconciliation”, it said.