Southwest leaders have to put heads together to deny terror any haven in the region
Perhaps there is no better way to start this piece than with the Yoruba adage: ‘Ogun agbotele ki ipa aro’ (a forewarned war does not kill a cripple). My father would tell you, with due respect, that that adage is incomplete. Meaning that some cripple persons would still die from a war for which they were forewarned.
So, he would always add ‘aro to ba gbon’ (that is only a wise cripple would not die as a result of such wars that they knew was coming). Why?
Because that wise cripple, unlike the foolish one, would realise his limited capabilities and so would not wait until the dying minutes before fleeing from the looming Armageddon.
I am going to be ‘southwest-centric’ today and I have no apologies for that. After all, it is because I am first an Egba man (though with some root in Lagos) that I qualify to be a Yoruba, and it is because I am Yoruba that Nigeria sees me as its own.
And if “all politics is local’ as the late U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill, argued, then I guess I am perfectly right to choose the path that I chose today.
After all, again, our elders say ”bí iná bá jóni, tó jó ọmọ ẹni, tara ẹni là ń kọ́ gbọ́n” (“if one is on fire and one’s child is on fire, one douses one’s own fire first). It is only then that one can have the presence of mind to patiently douse that of the child.
Today, I am going to talk on banditry or kidnapping in the southwest of Nigeria.
Kidnapping did not just start today. Indeed, it did not start in the Niger Delta as we might erroneously have believed. Kidnapping had been around since I was a kid growing up here in Lagos, as far back as the 70s. I remember that children were often the targets then. So, the kidnappers were called ‘gbomo gbomo’ (people stealing/kidnapping children). Even at that, the incidents were few and far between.
It was the large commercial variant of it involving usually adult expatriates then that started in the Niger Delta. It was when the home countries of those expatriates warned their nationals against careless movement in the Niger Delta region that there was a shortage of such people to kidnap. Because those involved had gotten used to free ransom money that they made from the illicit trade, they switched over to Nigerian oil workers.
After that, we had what started like a religious war in the Northern part of the country, orchestrated by Boko Haram (Western knowledge is sinful). It started as a peaceful protest until the leader of the group, Mohammed Yusuf, was killed extra-judicially in 2009, after which all hell was let loose.
Before we knew what was happening, banditry and kidnapping had taken over. And, because of the huge commercial value that is attached to kidnapping for ransom, it soon became rampant in the north, with many people maimed, raped, killed, or rendered homeless.
All this while, those of us in the southwest probably thought it couldn’t be our portion. That it was something the northern elites themselves caused. True, it should not have been our portion because, in terms of the socio-religous beliefs that provided the fertile ground for banditry and terrorism in the North, the southwest would appear immune.
People in the southwest are prepared to literally embrace suffering in order to send their children to school. Many gladly embraced poverty if that was the price they needed to pay to get their children educated.
Yes, the southwest has its own ‘area boys’ and girls who sometimes trouble the people, it usually is nothing compared to the mayhem that those of the children denied basic rights in the North engage in. Maybe this was one of the considerations of leaders in the southwest that made them think banditry and terrorism are too far from the region and so did so little to prepare for their attacks.
But this thinking cannot exonerate them because we got some early warning signals that ought to have got them ready to repel the criminals whenever they decide to come to the southwest.
An incident like the June 5, 2022 attack on St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, which claimed 41 lives, with about 100 injured, and for which four of the attackers were on June 3 sentenced to death by the Federal High Court, Abuja, ought to have alerted us enough to the reality that kidnapping and terrorism are near.
Then, the January 6, 2026, attack on the Old National Park outpost in Oloka village, Oriire Local Government Area, Oyo State, by a 10-man armed banditry gang which resulted in the tragic deaths of five forest rangers.
Again, on May 15, 2026, armed gunmen attacked three schools in the same Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, abducted over 45 pupils and teachers, and tragically killed two teachers, including one who was beheaded in captivity.
That has triggered reactions from different parts of the region with teachers embarking on protests to show their anger over the matter.
Several communities had been attacked and people killed in nearby Kwara State. All of these were more than enough warning signs that it was only a matter of time for these criminals to extend their activities to the southwest.
It is instructive that the people who are the major suspects in this banditry and kidnapping business are all over the place. The ubiquitous Fulani who, like the tortoise have become a metaphor for anything heinous because of the itinerant nature of their business have surrounded the region.
Yet, many of them will swear with their ancestors that they are not the ones involved in the heinous crimes of kidnapping, that it is their kith and kin from Niger that are perpetrating the evil.
But imagine one of the most recent incidents in the southwest. I mean the one involving the son of Abdullahi Muhammadu, the Seriki Fulani of Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, whose son, Bala Mohammed ,was only recently released after serving a five-year jail term for kidnapping. When it was realised that the rate of kidnapping in the area has increased since his release from prison, the police went for him, apparently on a tip-off, but he had been hinted by one of his siblings who knew the police were on their way to arrest him. They both fled.
The father said he knew his son was into kidnapping but thought he had turned a new leaf after serving out his term. He also said he was not sure if any of his other children was into the illicit business, and what have you.
The man could jolly well be saying the truth just as he could have been lying. But the fact of the matter is that these killer herders are all over the forests in the southwest. Even in the towns, they constitute a significant number of ‘Okada’ riders.
Whether in the forests or cities, they are strategically placed to cause mayhem the moment they are so mobilised. And, as we know, the only thing they hear and understand is “go”. They neither hear nor understand “come”.
As a matter of fact, some of them like Muhammadu, even have traditional titles conferred on them by some of our traditional rulers.
Chief Ebenezer Obey it was who sang years back that ‘ka to fi eniyan joye laarin Egba, o ni lati je eni rere (Only people of impeccable character are given chieftaincy titles in Egba Land).
It is not only in Egbaland; it applies anywhere in Yorubaland. But that was then. Some traditional rulers in the region now give chieftaincy titles to anyone with the means. They don’t care about how the fellow became wealthy; a key consideration in the years when birds cried like birds and rats cried like rats in the southwest.
But for the fact that the late Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, that Muhammadu said made him the Seriki Fulani was a traditional ruler of means, with integrity to boot, one might have asked that the police interrogate how he got such a title.
But we should be curious about how his son got only five years jail term when the law prescribes a stricter penalty for kidnapping in the state.
We do not know how many of such people are still out there in the southwest.
However, now that banditry and kidnapping have finally landed in the southwest, the governors must come out of their shells. Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo has banned movement on ‘Okada’ from 10.30p.m to 5.30a.m. throughout the state.
This ought to have come a long time ago. And there is no reason why other states in the region should not begin to take measures in anticipation of possible attacks by these criminals. They don’t have to wait until calamity happens before doing something.
The few times I have written on the southwest, I always seize the opportunity to remind those piloting the affairs of the region of the enormous burden of leadership they are carrying. I can proudly say it anywhere, anytime, that this is not just a region but a pace setter one at that.
Those who are leading or ruling in the southwest today must realise the history of the region they inherited. The Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo bequeathed unto us a region with many significant firsts: first skyscraper in West Africa (Cocoa House), commissioned in 1965; first television station in Africa, Western Nigeria Television (WNTV, 1959); the first stadium in West Africa, Liberty Stadium (1960), and others that I can’t mention due to space constraints.
We cannot boast all these and some people who say education is sinful (and yet ride on motorcycles, use modern weapons, etc.) would come and make our region desolate.
I do not think any true child of his father would open his eyes and allow that.
If state police can’t immediately take off because of its delicate nature, the governors must rub minds with the elders to think creatively out of the looming quagmire.
We should be wary of people who condemn western education and still are making use of its products. That should tell us there’s more to it than religion.
Terrorism’s other strains could either be commercial or political. But whatever it is should not be our business. Our business is to incapacitate terror before it incapacitates our region.
This is a region famous for its great ancestral warriors. It should not be exterminated by people who have neither known objectives nor permanent address.
All said, if the government puts its nose close to the ground, it would be able to sniff out the political from the commercial kidnapping, especially in the southwest, thus making it easy to be dealt with.
Southwest governors, ‘e ronu o’.
