Yinka ADETUNJI
A farmer and his wife have become the latest victims of Fulani herdsmen attack in Ogbomoso as they were brutally macheted by Fulani herdsmen last Monday for asking the herders to stop grazing their cows in their farm.
The farm located at the Farm Settlement otherwise known as Agric is a cassava farm owned by the couple.
According to the husband, Samuel Areo, who is currently recuperating at Bowen University Teaching Hospital, BUTH, Ogbomoso, he was alerted by some children on Monday afternoon that some cows were grazing on their farm.
Areo told ogbomosoinsightonline.com, “After l was alerted, l rushed to the farm to challenge the hersdmen. The cows were feeding heavily on the cassava crops, l demanded that the herders drive the cows away, they were two herders but at that time, the third hersdman came on a motorcycle.
“Then, one of them retrieved a cutlass from the motorcycle and slashed my hand with it.
“I was bleeding heavily as it was a deep cut. At that point my wife came around and she was attacked too with cutlass. It was a Togolese workman that rescued her. Other people also came to rescue me too,” he narrated.
The matter was reported at the Sunsun Divisional Police headquarters, Arowomole, however, the chairman of Myetti Allah in Ogbomoso, simply identified as Alhaji Mahmoud, quickly rushed to the Area Command Office at Owode with a petition that the Yoruba people at Agric were attacking them.
This action by the Myetti Allah leader it was learnt meanwhile was condemned by Seriki Fulani in Ogbomoso, Alhaji Guruma, who is now pushing that the law takes its course.
Sources at both Sunsun Police divisional headquarters and Area Command Office at Owode confirmed the incident, adding that it is being investigated.
Asked if their assailants were Fulani hersdmen in the neighbourhood, Areo said two of them live in a settlement nearby but that the herder that attacked them was an unknown entity to them.
He disclosed his wife however is receiving treatment at a private hospital. He thanked God for sparing their lives.
