Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka has tackled and faulted police claim that his property wasn’t invaded by cows and herdsmen who, on Tuesday, entered the Kemta Housing Estate, Abeokuta, Ogun State, where his house is located.
There were reports on Wednesday that some herders and their cows invaded the elder statesman’s property and attacked him.
But Soyinka in a statement on Thursday from his Autonomous Residence of Ijegba, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta, Ogun State, titled: ‘Mad cows and even madder narratives’, said he was never attacked but described the police version of the incident as untrue.
The state police command in a statement by its spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi, had said there was no invasion of Soyinka’s residence or attack on him by the herders or their cows.
It noted that only a herdsman entered the area in search of a stray cow.
Soyinka said, “For those who truly seek details of the Ijegba incident, I hereby affirm that I was never physically attacked, neither did I attack any cows. The cows and herders did however attack my property – and not for the first time. The police need to be very, very careful and learn to be straightforward with public information.
“Failure to adhere to that obvious, basic form of conduct means that the public will lose total confidence in security agencies and constantly bypass them in times of civic unrest, no matter how trivial or deadly.”
The Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Gani Adams, warned criminal herdsmen in the South-West to stay away from the region or face the wrath of the Oodua People’s Congress.
He was reacting to the encroachment on the Abeokuta residence of the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, by herdsmen and their cattle.
In the statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Aderemi, Adams said the manner of the encroachment was a threat to Soyinka’s privacy.
Credit: punchng.com
