Reps urge IGP, DG SSS to maintain peace in Ijeshaland

By TORKWASE NYIEKAA, Abuja

The House of Representatives has urged the Inspector General of Police and Director General of State Security Service, as well as other security agencies to intervene by deploying their officers to Ijeshaland over incessant killings by suspected cultists.

The House further mandated its joint Committees on Defense, Police and Army to interface with relevant authorities with a view to saving lives and properties.

It also urged the Police and DSS to run an investigation on the recently recovered abandoned branded vehicle in the area.

This followed resolutions on a motion by Hon. Lawrence Babatunde Ayeni, who lamented that the suspected cultists have been killing innocent citizens in the area.

He said Atakumosa East/Atakumosa West, Ilesha East and Ilesha West Federal Constituency of Osun State has been the most peaceful localities in the South West region of the country, but that regrettably, “the inglorious activities of suspected members of the yet to be identified Cultist group has over the past three months embarked on merciless murder of unsuspecting residents in the area.”

“On the 7th February 2022, members of the dreadful cultist group in broad daylight killed five persons while those who were hurt by stray bullets and sustained various degrees of injury were taken to Wesley Hospital located in Ilesha East for medical treatment”, he recalled.

According to him, barely two weeks after, specifically 19th February 2022 which was the day for the All Progressives Congress (APC) party primary, a group of political thugs who drove in a branded vehicle of a certain political party, invaded the venue of the party primary and unleashed attacks on the voters and succeeded in killing one person before they escaped from the incident but the security agencies pursued them and recovered the vehicle used for the operation where they abandoned it and was towed to Ayeso Police Station.

“There was another massacre carried out on Monday, 21st February 2022 in Irojo area of Ilesha East during which seven persons were killed by the suspected cultists around 7.30 pm, barely an hour of a peace meeting by some community leaders and the Osun State Commissioner of Police, adding that residents can no longer sleep with two eyes closed”, he said. (Daily Independent)