Akintoye calls for robust investigation into serial fire outbreaks in Yoruba land

Yoruba Leader Emeritus Professor Adebanji Akintoye has called on the Federal Government and the state governments to conduct thorough investigation into what he called “the unusual spate of fire incidents in Nigeria and particularly in Yoruba land”. Prof. Akintoye made the call after he paid a visit to the site of the recent explosion in Abule Ado area of Lagos State which claimed many lives and destroyed buildings and other properties worth billions of Naira.

Chief Akintoye, who is also the International President of the Yoruba World Congress, expressed concern over “the questionable silence of relevant authorities on the outcome of whatever investigations purported to have been carried out on the series of unexplainable incidents of fires that had devastated several popular markets in Yoruba land.”

In a statement on Tuesday signed by the Chief Spokesman and an executive member of the Leaders Council of Yoruba World Congress, Jagun Oodua Akogun Tola Adeniyi, Prof. Akintoye warned that “the Yoruba kingdom will not sit idly by while markets, strategic economic structures, housing estates and similar institutions of value are set on fire in dubious or suspicious circumstances.”

Continuing, he said: “It is no longer news that the dreaded Boko Haram created to advance whatever motives had already dragged its menace beyond the home of its creation and had infiltrated several peace loving indigenous nations in the country in addition to the vicious and ferocious banditry of herdsmen. It is in the light of this conscious reality that the Yoruba World Congress calls on leaders of the United Yoruba Kingdoms not to treat these provocative fire outbreaks with levity.”

Prof. Akintoye wondered how the Group Managing Director of NNPC “who is not a bomb expert, or a magician could hastily jump into conclusion, without any investigation, that the explosion was caused by whatever.”

He added: “The Yoruba country cannot submit itself to any insidious stampede. And if in the long run it is established that some dark forces are behind the serial explosions, such forces are better advised to stop the criminal nonsense.”

The Yoruba Leader expressed deep sympathy for all those affected by the incident. He enjoined all Yoruba sons and daughters all over Yoruba nation “to be extra vigilant and watch out for saboteurs and report suspicious elements and movements to relevant security agencies.”