Ekiti: Armed Herdsmen strike again, kidnap 7 children of Apostolic Faith school, shoot driver at Oke Ako

By Samuel Ogunsona

Armed men suspected to be of Fulani extraction have again struck in Ekiti State, few hours after killing two traditional rulers in a sacred assault on Yoruba values.

On Monday, some three hours after killing two Obas, the armed herdsmen shot at a driver few kilometers at the spot where the two Kings were killed. The victim, Kayode escaped in his car.

At Emure in the evening of Monday, the armed men attacked a bus conveying pupils of Appostolic Faith Nursery and Primary School located on Ise Road.

They seized no fewer than five Kindergarten children and two tutors.

The state Governor, Abiodun Oyebanji was said to have had sleepless nights
coordinating efforts to rescue the kidnapped victims and working on arresting the killers of the two Ekiti Oba.

Apart from ordering the immediate rescue of the children and the arrest of perpetrators, he was said to have asked Amotekun commanders to invade the forest and arrest the evil men.

Eyewitnesses told Irohinoodua that the bus with the children was going back to Eporo to drop some of the pupils after the Monday school hours. The Apostolic Faith School is located in Emure Ekiti.

“From all indications, the attackers were not locals. They are of Fulani extraction by the account of people who saw them before the witnesses fled in the face of gunshots,” Saheed Abiola, a member of the All Yoruba Democratic Movement, (AYDM) in the community told our correspondent

Reports said the little children cried with copious tears “My mummy, My mummy” as the armed men took them captive without a dose of mercy. Some tutors were also said to have been abducted with the children. At least a lady worker is among he captives

They were said to have been seized around 5pm on Monday between Emure and Eporo, another community few kilometers from Emure.

A security expert said the children are likely to have been forced to treck all night in the thick forest and would hardly be able to sleep in the presence of armed, vicious men wielding sophisticated weapons.
He said they are already victims of trauma and will come out with strange behaviors.

“We are worried. Our leaders should put themselves in the shoes of victims of kidnapping. How will these children feel? What will they eat all night? What water would they drink? How would they march in the forest on foot all night?”asked the AYDM Secretary General Mr Popoola Ajayi in a chat with Irohinoodua.

He said the reality is that the Governors are powerless and are not in a position to build capacity for the security operatives in their states while they are at the liberty of operational directives of the police which in reality they do not control.

“The Ekiti Governor Oyebanji is an excellent leader. But there is a little he can do. In less than one hour, he had issued a statement on the killing of the Obas and he mobilised Amotekun to the scene. But it took the police more than 14 hours to respond. I’m not even sure that as at this morning they have sent their operatives there. Security challenges reflect the faultlines of Nigerian unitary system which must be destroyed for the country to rise beyond her current stunted growth” Popoola said.