By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi has asked the Yoruba and the Hausa people in Ifeland to give peace a chance.
Oba Ogunwusi who made the appeal in a statement made available to newsmen by his Director of Media, Comrade Moses Yera Olafare described members of the Hausa Community in Ile-Ife as his subjects with whom he has enjoyed tremendous loyalty in the last 14months of his reign.
He urged the Yoruba people to always embrace the Hausa and other ethnic groups as their brothers to enjoy maximum peaceful coexistence, saying, “we must let peace reign in Ile-Ife and respect one another”.
“My people, we are working to ensure that things don’t get out of hand. We must let peace reign in Ile-Ife and respect one another. Yorubaland is a place of love, we show love to every visitors in our land and our kinsmen in other parts of the country have equally enjoyed love from their hosts. Let’s always maintain peace and harmony with them here too” he said.
The Ooni said the crisis between the Hausa and the Yoruba in Ile Ife on Wednesday was very unfortunate and caused by agents of backwardness and devastation.
“Kabiyesi is very unhappy about the whole crisis. He has always treated the Hausas residing in the town as his subjects and has tremendously enjoyed the loyalty of their leadership, that is why he has not left any stone unturned to bring the avoidable ugly situation to normalcy by acting promptly upon receiving a report of an altercation between a Yoruba woman and a Hausa man on Tuesday evening. Baba immediately sent some chiefs to address the situation which was amicably resolved and we all thought it was over until we woke up the following morning (Wednesday) to hear that they had started attacking one another. He quickly informed the security agencies who responded very swiftly”.
Oba Ogunwusi lauded Governor Rauf Aregbesola for his efforts towards ending the crisis, saying, “thank God for the normalcy, the governor has been so proactive and the security agents have on top of the situation” .
