A socio-cultural group, Council of Yoruba Elders (CYE), have called for the urgent intervention of President Bola Tinubu over the recent security situation and worsening inflation in the country, especially the southwest region.
The group also condemned the high cost of food items and other essential commodities in the market which, according to them, has made life more unbearable for Nigerians.
Addressing journalists at a media parley in Ibadan, secretary-general of the group, Dr Victor Taiwo, lamented the increasing insecurity challenges in the south-west region of the country.
“A lot of reports reaching our office daily regarding the effect of the renewed Fulani herdsmen attacks on our farmers, the ravaging of our farmers’ plantation fields, the abductions of our people for ransom by bandits and the indiscriminate killings of our people most especially in Ondo and Oyo states respectively have become a sort of nightmare to us,” Taiwo said.
“It was a kind of relief for us when we witnessed a reduction in the menace immediately after the government changed hands in May 2023, but quite unfortunately what we are witnessing now is a resurgence in a high profile. It is also an understatement to say armed robbers are literally on the rampage in the land.
“You can imagine that widely published sad occurrence of the gruesome murder of a 62-year-old grandmother, Iyanuoluwa Adamolekun, of Similoluwa area, Agbaluku Arigidi Akoko in Ondo State. We also have in our record the kidnap incidents in Saki, Okaka and Ipapo, Oke-ogun, and Axis of Oyo State here. So, within a month, Fulani herders’ attacks on farmers in Afon, Ipokia, Ogun State, Iwere-Ile, Komu and Otu in Oyo State.
“We also heard about the killing of Rev. David Musa of the ECWA in Obajana, Kogi State on October 14, 2023, and also the abduction of about 15 church members in Ondo State in September, all these challenges should be critically looked into by Mr President before it escalates into something else,” Taiwo said.
While speaking on the level of inflation, Taiwo linked insecurity issues across the country and the fuel subsidy removal to the high cost of food items in the country.
He said: “The recent attacks on our farmers in the southwest and the fuel subsidy removal have resulted in high cost of food items in our markets, the Fulani herders through their series of attacks are preventing our farmers from freely accessing their farms and this has naturally led to a deficit in food items and it has resulted to high costs of food items.
“The high cost of transportation due to the removal of fuel subsidy has also contributed a lot to the high cost of essential commodities in our markets and Nigerians are finding it so difficult to maintain their three square meals daily.
“We reviewed the state of the economy and it is very lamentable that the suffering the masses are passing through is fast becoming unbearable so much that the rate of deaths by suicide due to hunger and hopelessness is quite unprecedented in the history of this country.
“The rate at which inflation on foods and general goods and services is skyrocketing is very much disturbing to the nerves so much that deaths by hunger are no more news to the ear.
“The rate of unemployment in the country has become paradoxically a norm and alarming. So, out of sheer hopelessness for our youths at securing employment, they find solace or alternative means of survival in Yahoo businesses, kidnapping of their fellow citizens for ransom and several other criminal activities.
“For all that is obvious, since the so-called fuel subsidy was removed by the government, the loop effect has been too much telling on the general economic life of the people.
“And yet all efforts by the government to ease the hardship have not effected any positive change in the lives of the people but rather excruciating agony.
“Now, as the new voice for the Yoruba people of Yorubaland, we cannot feign ignorance of the cries our people are inundating us with daily.
“What is, therefore, the way out for our people in Yorubaland suffering amid plenty? So, we are using this opportunity to call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to find a lasting solution to all these issues at hand for our people to truly have rest of mind,” Taiwo added.
