By Lekan Adejuwon
The Commandant of Ekiti amotekun Brigadier General Joe Akomolafe has cleared the air on the violent clash between his men and a section of Hausa community at Atikankan area of Ado Ekiti yesterday.
The retired army General in a press briefing held at the headquarters of the corps along Old Iyin Road in Ado
Ekiti said: ‘On 8th of May the chairman of Ado Local Governent Hon. Osaloni invited us that the State Governent has passed a message to keep off those buying and selling on the streets of Ado in all markets like Agric Olope, Obas market and Atikankan.
“So we actually commenced operation beginning from Sabo I have the video clip, everything was going normal. In fact the Local Governent provided the use of town criers to persuade the people to keep to government directive relayed in different languages.
Then on the 10th, we went to Atikankan also for the same purpose, we never encountered any challenge in the other markets that we visited.
But when we got to Atikankan we told them this is what the Governor said and they have been informed about a month ago that they should vacate the place. Some of them were so bold to tell us that we are not going, why? They said they have C of O and they paid Isakole to some of the chiefs and I said no. If you pay any money to chiefs, chiefs hold the land in trust for Governent You cannot stay there. This is government land and government has made provision at Olope area where a state of the art facilities have been put in place.
“The following day, which was yesterday, my operatives went there to go and see the level of compliance to that instruction only to get there and discovered to our shock that these people had prepared for us attacking us with stones some put nails on the sticks and other offensive weapons to attack my operatives. In the process, four of my operatives were seriously injured with deep cuts on their heads and bodies one of them even lost his teeth. In the process we heard some gunshots from the crowd
“Actually we didn’t go there to use force on anybody but we employed persuasion. We were shocked when they resisted I’m very sure those hardened criminals that were still hiding there orchestrated the resistance. They even went as far as holding one of my operatives hostage inside their den.
“When it got to that level, Atikankan is a criminals den, I have no choice than to first, go and rescue him and secondly I had to call the Nigerian Police Force and other sister security agencies to our aid because Atikankan is notorious. If we had gone there to use force the story would have been different but unfortunately we thought they would listen to our persuasion. The security agencies came and restored peace and as we speak the situation around the area is calm”
Responding to the question of the widely reported death of one person, Gen Joe Akomolafe denied knowledge of any casualty as he maintained that none of his boys shot during the fracas. “I’m not aware because till now I’ve not seen any dead body, nobody has brought back any dead body but on my own part my boys sustained injuries and cuts and even there was any casualty at all, we should ask some of those criminals who must have done that” he concluded.
