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A PRESS STATEMENT

By Chief Akintayo Akin-Deko, Chairman, Board of Trustees

Majeobaje Community Development Initiative (Majeobaje)

At Pentonrise, Bodjia, Ibadan. Thursday, 5^th June, 2025.

Introduction…

Gentlemen of the press, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. We have called this press conference to raise an urgent alarm about the increasingly foreboding security situation across Yorubaland. It is also to call the attention of all critical stakeholders to the avoidable existential threat to our people and their resources.  Finally, this meeting was called to announce a critical security workshop at which these stakeholders will review, discuss and agree concrete plans on how to secure the entirety of the South West, starting at the neighborhoods and grassroots. On behalf of the Majeobaje Community Development Initiative, let me elaborate on these three reasons.

The warning early this week from the United States through the Commander of U.S. Africa Command of the U.S. Marine Corps, General Michael Langley is a good place to start. In his statement, the American general said, (and I quote) “One of the terrorists’ new objectives is gaining access to West Africa’s coasts. If they secure access to the coastline, they can finance their operations through smuggling, human trafficking and arms trading.” (unquote). This statement, made as part of his media briefing on May 30, 2025 at the end of the recently concluded African Chiefs of Defence Conference is  just another (even if the most recent) example of the many external risk assessments that have been used to characterize the scary security situation of Nigeria, particularly, its strategic South Western component.

While the threats of insecurity and challenges to livelihood in the South West was once limited to kidnapping and the occasional cases of murder, the situation has since escalated to point of the imminent possibilities of terrorist attacks on Yoruba strategic assets. Since the South West is essentially the industrial hub of West Africa, it should be no surprise that this zone would be one of the prime targets of the relentless agents of destabilization targeted at our region. In this regard, we must also remember that Ondo state possesses the longest coastline in Nigeria while the Lagos coast is the country’s economic nerve centre. These strategic economic attributes make the two Yoruba states potential focal targets of terrorists and such unconscionable predators.

It should therefore be obvious now why terrorists and other types of interlopers are unrelenting in their determination to infiltrate, overrun or completely destroy the South West in fulfilment of their evil assignment of derailing the overall Nigerian project.

This Danger Touches Everyone

Majeobaje Community Development Initiative (Majeobaje) has for the past decade closely monitored and supported development activities in the SouthWest (SW) and adjoining states. One issue that has militated against the attainment of expected levels of development, and which constitutes an overwhelming cause for grave concern has been the negative but recurring decimal of INSECURITY. 

It is no longer news that rural banditry, insurgency, herdsmen attacks and other criminalities which in the past had enveloped Nigeria’s Northwest, Northeast and Middle Belt has overrun the states of Kwara, Kogi and Edo which are contiguous states to the Southwest Zone. It is therefore not surprising that they have also become prevalent in Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo states. With apparent confidence that the residents and communities in the region are defenceless, the invaders carry out violent attacks, kidnappings, and widespread destruction of property, especially farmlands across the region with impunity, thereby disrupting the peace and socio-economic development of the affected areas. The victims, if they survive, are left to lament and wring their hands in helplessness, while looking to the over-stretched security agencies to come to their aid.

Though several efforts were made by stakeholders to confront the hydra-headed monster of insecurity, they have been inadequate and consequently ineffective. There is therefore an urgent need to tackle this dire situation head-on, to avoid chaos from violent clashes and food insecurity. 

So, how did we get to this sorry pass? The current situation is the result of a sustained campaign of violence and domination which has been perpetrated over the last 16 years, and which has now assumed existential dimensions. We recall that at first it was herdsmen armed with AK47 assault rifles, but then it metamorphosed into invasions by hardened terrorists with military-grade weapons. Reports in the media, which were corroborated by our network of contacts across the Zone, point to the fact that Insecurity is not only frustrating efforts to farm or set up industrial ventures in rural areas, it is also killing our people. If left unchallenged, the problem will eventually rob our farmers of their land and livelihood and deny our children their heritage. 

From the beheading of Baba Jeje, a farmer in Iseyin in February 2018 by armed herdsmen, to the murderous activities of Isilu Wakili, whose terrorism in the Oke-Ogun area was eventually ended in March 2021 after Ibarapa Vigilantes arrested him. The gruesome killing of over forty innocent worshippers at St. Catherine’s Church, Owo in June 2022 dominated the headlines at the time, but what has hardly been reported is that in 2025, the attackers have threatened to return to inflict more mayhem!   

In the face of the recent decision of the Supreme Court which confirmed the death sentence on a farmer in the northern part of the country for daring to kill his assailant in an effort at self-defence, there is an urgent need to reappraise the dire situation and formulate a new approach for protecting defenceless people, residents and local communities at large. This remorseless onslaught on our patrimony must be brought to a halt and THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!

Stemming The Attacks

Successive governments have been unable to surmount the challenge of banditry and violent attacks since 2015. In March 2018, Lt-General TY Danjuma, a former Minister of Defence and one of the most senior and well regarded figures in the Nigerian military spoke out and urged Nigerians to defend themselves against bandits to save their communities. But when the attacks continued unabated, the good general had to repeat himself, seven years later, in April 2025 by once again urging the community members to take concrete steps to defend themselves against the marauding hordes of violent extremists, bandits, herdsmen and kidnappers. It is noteworthy that General Danjuma’s repeated admonition came on the heels of DSS Director-General, Tosin Ajayi’s advice that communities must organize themselves as their own first line of defence against “miscreants”. CLEARLY, SECURITY STARTS WHEN INDIGENES ORGANIZE THEIR OWN SELF-DEFENCE.

But how have our regional, state and community leaders responded to this call for self-motivated community defence? How have our governors, senators, members of the house of representatives and legislators across the six south west states acted in response to this categorical imperative? What have been the strategies agreed and implemented at our respective town, village and community levels by our esteemed kabiyesis, chiefs and community leaders? When shall our governors and other leaders summon the will to action by decisively laying out the roadmap, creatively mobilizing the resources required and demonstrating urgency by leading from the front? Why are we waiting to be overrun, fully outflanked and captured while snoring away and pretending that all is well? What is to be done? When? And by who?

Sadly, it is our elected officials, including some Governors, Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, State Assemblymen (and women), and Local Government Chairmen and their legislature that have patently failed to offer our people some cause for comfort in this matter of the grave and escalating existential threats confronting our region, its people and their assets. These same elected public officers are the people who, prior to their election, created well-networked social and political structures across their constituencies to mobilize voters’ support. They know the traditional rulers, the women leaders, the youth leaders as well as the farmers and hunters in the various communities that make up their constituencies. But why have they failed to activate these structures and organize their people for self-defence even as the spectre of insecurity has become too palpable to be deniable? Why have they – like the proverbial ostrich – chosen to hide their heads in the sands pretending not to see or hear the anguished cries of their besieged constituents? THIS IS MOST UNFORTUNATE.

These elected officials can change the narrative within a very short time if and once they choose to act on behalf of their constituents. With the status and privileges they enjoy as elected leaders, combined with the humongous resources in their charge, they can positively change the trajectory of our region’s development and restore the confidence of the citizens who simply demand a more secure environment to work and thrive. Whether individually or collectively, these officials across our six states have received stupendous amount of funds in recent times. To quote Sadiq Mohammed in his report of 26-May, 2025; “Two years after President Bola Tinubu’s May 2023 decision to end subsidies on premium motor spirit (petrol), the Federal Government may have saved over N7Trillion, which was subsequently disbursed to states but the bad consequences of poor management of funds by governors has strained millions of vulnerable households and businesses continue to suffer”. A similar report was also published in the Guardian Nigeria of the same date.

The Senators and Representatives are known to have respectively appropriated N2Billion and N1Billion in the 2025 budget for projects in their constituencies as was widely reported on 18th May, 2025 in most mainstream Nigeria media. What makes this story rather concerning is the revelation by the watchdog known as BudgIT that of that total budgetary allocation, 45% is to go for ICT-related projects, 36% for Street Lights, 16% for building classroom blocks while the paltry leftover of 1% is for buying 24 Security vehicles! (Some cynics even say that the negligible 1% is probably a euphemism for Prado Jeep for the LGA Chairman or Traditional ruler).

We must also not forget about the windfall revenue that have accrued to government since the Naira to Dollar exchange rate crashed from 460:1 in 2023 when President Tinubu was sworn in to the current rate of 1,600:1. The dollar we earn, when changed to Naira gives the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) a humongous increase in the money available to share amongst the three tiers of government.

From the. Foregoing media reports, it is apparent that our governments and elected officials across Yorubaland are awash with money; we may therefore simply be dealing with A QUESTION OF MISPLACED PRIORITIES

The Way Forward

We are not calling for our elected officials to become security men and women. What we are requesting is that they kindly but urgently prioritize the security of our region, its people and assets today. What we propose to them is to meet with all critical stakeholders to design and commit to a security framework and programme that would ensure that our people can breathe and sleep better in the sure knowledge that some strategic thinking and leadership action is being implemented to protect their lives, limbs and resources from those opportunistic marauders, determined terrorists and land grabbers who may already be lurking in our forests, cities and other ungoverned spaces waiting to unleash horrors on us and our ancestral heritages.

To this end, Majeobaje is organizing a Sensitization Workshop on Securing Our Communities. In conjunction with like-minded partners, this workshop aims to bring to together a distinguished mix of our governing elites, eminent security experts, development strategists and other grassroots stakeholders to discuss and agree practical and implementable suggestions and activities on how best to strengthen security measures for the people in collaboration with the nation’s security authorities and in compliance with extant laws.

Finally…

Gentlemen of the Press, our interest in this matter is simple and straightforward; we just desire to sensitize, plead with and motivate our political, cultural and business elites to very urgently rise up from their seeming indifference to work together for the safety and security our region, it’s hardworking  people and their ancestral assets.

We believe that with due diligence, we can save Yorubaland from looming apocalypse so that we can continue to be a blessing to Nigeria.

Thank you. God bless.