WAKILI/OPC: How available evidence proves, disproves allegations, counter-allegations

Three days after a detachment of the OPC militant front arrested members of a Fulani dreaded clan at Kajola, Ayete, allegations of extra-judicial killing and arson have been raging. All with little or no evidence.

While the police and a Fulani group, Gan Allah Fulani Development Association (GAFDA), insisted the arrest of the 75 year-old Isikilu Wakili with his sons was accompanied with killing of a woman, cows, destruction of houses, cash, and foodstuff, the OPC team leader denied all.

Neither have the accusers produced evidence of wrongdoing nor the accused have offered convincing evidence of arson and murder  they claim since March 6 when the police first made the allegation in a press statement—stating it as the reason for detaining three of the OPC members that handed over the suspects.

Adedeji Oluwole, the leader of the OPC team that went on the mission, however, said they made a conscious decision to arrest Wakili and others unhurt.

“We didn’t even mind the fact that his sons opened fire on us when we got there,” Oluwole said that day in a video he recorded—not on the scene of the incident, though.

And up till now, the Yoruba group has kept up its verbal denial.

However, on March 10, GAFDA at a press conference in Ibadan—far away from the scene of the incident in Ibarapa north—claimed there were casualties, human and animal.

“As we speak, two of his sons are receiving treatment in Igbo-Ora as a result of the incident. His houses were burnt, six motorcycles were burnt along with bags of foodstuffs (sic). N5 million meant for our members was burnt,” said the group’s chairman Yusuf Gizori.

“The attack led to the death of one of my sisters, Fatima Umar, who was shot by OPC members.”

Gizori and his group didn’t back up their claim with any evidence.

The National Daily contacted one of the Fulani association leaders in Ibarapa north—for verification.

And there are discrepancies in the GAFDAN statement and the evidence the newspaper gathered from the source.

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“I could only confirm three dead cows. And two of Wakili’s sons—Doki and Ismaila—are detained at Iyanganku, Ibadan,” said the source, directly contradicting Gizori’s claim the sons were hosptalised. Oluwole even said the gunman among the sons the OPC busted that day sped off on a bike.

“The whole place was burnt down,” the source confirmed, “and a pregnant woman was killed.”

While Gizori identified her as his sister Fatima Umar, the Ibarapa north source told the National Daily she was Kadi—or Kehinde.

The Igboora hospital GAFDA mentioned had no identification to make verification easier. But an insider at Adaba Hospital, where casualties of the Jan 26 Fulani-farmer violence at Igangan were deposited, said he was not aware of Wakili’s sons receiving treatment in the facility.

Unhurt as the OPC handed him over to the police, Wakili himself had to be hospitalized on Sunday, when the police considered his health condition, including his complaint of eye problem.

It beggars belief Wakili, close to 80, could do all they alleged he and his sons were doing in the Ayete area, according to the barapa source.

“He bought the land he occupied for N5 million, and he has always been at peace over there. I think they just wanted to get rid of him as they did Abdulkadir Salihu of Igangan,” he told the National Daily.

About Wakili’s alleged criminality, the police command has asked people to come forward with evidence. None has come out up till now. Not even the OPC that arrested him.

“On the availability of evidence, I think our boys made a mistake,” a prominent Yoruba farmer in Ibarapa told the National Daily.

While there is no denying Fulani banditry in the countryside of Oyo and other southwest states, the problem of misinformation fuelled by unverified stories appears a bigger problem.

And this is making  it more difficult to resolve justifiably—for farmers who are victims and the Fulani herders the suspects.

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