Chairman, South-Western Security Network, codenamed Amotekun in Oyo, Col. Kunle Togun (rtd), yesterday, said most commercial motorcyclists in the state were spying for kidnappers and bandits that capitalised on the nation’s porous borders.
He noted that the foreigners, who were ferried via trailers into Oyo during the COVID-19 lockdown, could not speak any Nigerian language but French whenever accosted by his men.
The Amotekun chair made the disclosure during a chat with reporters in Ibadan.
He hinted that the warning from the state governor to traditional chiefs to stop allocating land to herdsmen with no papers showing their Nigerian nationality would stem the spate of killing and kidnapping in Yorubaland.
The retired army officer said the greedy nature of some traditional and community leaders in many Yoruba towns led to the high rate of insecurity, which he said, his outfit was curbing.
Togun noted: “Before Amotekun was established, the problem of Yorubaland since the invasion of the land by these herdsmen has been our traditional chiefs and leaders in Yorubaland. They take money, cows and cars from these people and allow them to settle and wreak havoc on their domains.”
“I have attended meetings of obas in Oke-Ogun and I told them to stop giving land to foreigners. These herdsmen are called Bororos in Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa areas, they are not Nigerians. What is happening should not be analysed in the area of religion, it is territorial expansion.”
He continued: “Their leaders argue about the ECOWAS free movement law, but the one I am aware of is that anybody from ECOWAS country can go into another ECOWAS country without visa, but you cannot stay there for more than 90 days at a stretch, some of these people have been occupying our land for years and they are not Nigerians.
“Most of them that were dumped here by trailers during the COVID-19 lockdown have turned to okada riders. Many are carrying wheelbarrows all over the place, selling carrots, orange and the rest. The Okada riders are their spies. We have noted that and we are working on a government policy that will curtail the use of these people to foment crisis in Oyo State and Yorubaland as a whole.”
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