Daily Post Nigeria
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The news, on Sunday morning of the arrest of Iskilu Wakali, who, until his arrest was by far regarded by many as the most dreaded Fulani herdsmen in the whole of the Ibarapa area of Oyo State, came as a great relief for many people in the South-West geopolitical zone.
This was manifested through the many comments hailing the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) that effected his arrest. To many, Wakili had overtime assumed a larger than life image and literally became a legend in the Ibarapa area for his alleged atrocities, which included kidnappings, killings, rape and forceful takeover of hectares of farm land.
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Notorious Fulani herdsman in Ibarapa area of Oyo State, Iskilu Wakili, has been apprehended, just as the news of the arrest created excitement in the area. Wakili was apprehended on Sunday morning after men of the Iba Gani Adams-led Oodua Peoples’ Congress (OPC) launched an operation to arrest him and his men domiciled in the bushes of Igbo-Ora to Igangan. Farmers and residents, especially in Ayete area of Ibarapaland, had fingered Wakili and his men for being behind various crimes, including seizing hectares of farmland, raping women, kidnapping, among others.
Ayete people had continuously lived in perpetual fear with Wakili allegedly marking out a territory for himself categorized as a no-go area for both civilians and security agents. Speaking to Nigerian Tribune on the operation, the Oyo State coordinator of OPC, Mr Rotimi Olumo, said his men decided to launch the operation following reports that Wakili had allegedly become notorious for various criminalities in Ibarap
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Published 14 February 2021
Early in January, a torrent of bad news started emanating from the Ibarapa axis of Oyo State. The stories were about kidnapping, attacks by killer herdsmen and destruction of farmlands across Ibarapaland.
Incidentally, those attacks were on the heels of the alarm earlier raised by Governor ‘Seyi Makinde when he declared in Saki, a key town in Oke Ogun axis of the state in December 2020, that some criminal elements were crossing the international borders into the forests around Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa. He said that the state would not allow criminal elements seize the state and terrorise its people.