The Ife communities and Modakeke have traded words over the alleged killings and attacks on villages on both communities.
The Chairman of The Ife Intellectuals, Prince Ademuyiwa Adeniran, in a statement signed by the Secretary of the group, Comrade Kolawole Jimoh Oladipo enumerated how the bandits invade ife communities, killed Indigenes and stole valuables as well as forceful take over of over one hundred villages
“The latest round of wanton killings of an Ife chief and two others, with two more persons feared killed (but corpses not found yet), allegedly carried out by Modakeke bandits is the height of the incessant attacks on both the persons and properties of the Ife people. The situation is so tense presently that there is the need for the trigger-happy and machete-wielding suspected Modakeke trouble seekers to be checked.”
“The following are instances of the murderous and thieving activities of these marauders that the peace-loving and law-abiding Ife people have endured till now:
Prince Ademuyiwa Adeniran made the following allegations:
“Modakeke has forcefully taken over nothing less than one hundred Ife villages in recent times by terrorizing, killing, maiming and kidnapping the ancestral owners of those farmlands and thereby scaring the survivors out of the villages.
“This unchecked affront of the Modakeke bandits gave them the insolent audacity to launch further attacks on Toro, Yekere and Alape villages and to illegally annex and rename same as belonging to Modakeke in successive order between October and December, 2023. ”
“The village heads and royal highnesses of groups of villages installed/crowned by the Ooni, including Olu of Toro and Oloyere of Oyere, were sacked from their ancestral domains of authority. All attempts by the ancestral owners of those farmlands to lawfully re-possess them with the police who have at various times accompanied them there to enforce court judgements have been flagrantly and forcefully resisted by the Modakeke miscreants who have illegally taken possession of the farms cultivated and nurtured by Ife farmers.
“The gruesome murder of Chief Adesoji Adedire of Wanisanni village and two others, with two more persons missing till now, along that axis on Tuesday March 19, 2024 is the latest in the acts of aggression against Ife. Chief Adedire was not merely killed, but his two arms were chopped off and carted away apparently for ritual purposes. Such a dastardly act! Oftentimes when the killers and pillagers have carried out their nefarious acts, they are the ones that would rush to the public claiming that Ife is maltreating and killing them, like it happened about three years ago at Toro.”
“They are the aggressors and they play the victims at the same time, thereby painting Ife natives as a set of evil and hostile people. As they play out their separatist and expansionist agenda in the farmlands of Ife, so they do in Ile-Ife township. Modakeke as a community was resettled on a defined space within Ile-Ife on their return in 1922 during the reign of Ooni Ademiluyi Ajagun after they were dispersed in 1909. They were resettled not as a separate town, but an integral part of Ile-Ife. This was reasserted in the Bode George panel’s 11-point Ife-Modakeke crisis settlement document of the year 2000.
“Apart from Modakeke sticking to their gun on being a separate town from Ife, they have gone on clandestine Ife streets renaming as Modakeke. This is obvious on IBEDC bills with regard to places like Lagere, Akarabata, Ijedu, Urban-Day Grammar School area, Aderemi Road, Isale-Agbara, just to mention but a few. As part of measures to consolidate this land-grabbing agenda, a new market was established at Akarabata on Saturday 23rd March by the Modakeke people named “Arowolo Market, Akarabata, Modakeke” in an area with an Ife Baale installed by the Ooni.”
“This is clearly the rebellious agenda of Ogunsua Toriola playing out. Prior to his emergence as Ogunsua, the then Chief Toriola had offered as his own “solution” to the Ife-Modakeke perennial crisis that for peace to reign, Ife must accept that everything to the right coming into Ile-Ife from Oduduwa University roundabout along Ife-Ibadan express way is Modakeke and whatever is to the left is Ile-Ife. All the places being illegally renamed as Modakeke are on the said right side of the road, including Ife Central Local Government secretariat.”
Reacting to the allegations made by the Ife Intellectuals, the Modakeke Think Tank (MTT) under the chairmanship of Chief Kola Olabisi regarded the statement as being false.
He said “While we are not foreclosing the existence of any likely misunderstanding among some individuals in both Ile-Ife and Modakeke, it is wicked and treacherous for the affected persons to elevate such infractions into communal affairs in order to whip up undue sentiment and subsequently rocking the lingering existing peace between the two communities.
While appealing to those whose preoccupation in the two communities is to cause disharmony, tension and crisis to redirect their priority by focusing on profitable ventures that would improve the existing peace in Ifeland.
He also said “It is observed that Prince Adeniran who bombarded the press with the information that one Chief Adesoji Adedire of Wanisanni village and two anonymous people of Ife extraction were killed refused to add that a Modakeke couple whose wife was backing a baby was earlier slaughtered like a ram in front of his wife by some Ife bandits on March 19th, 2024 at about 7am at Omigbooro, near Abaa Paanu, where three Modakeke farmers were shot while two of them died immediately and the third victim died three days after.
“The name of one of the slaughtered Modakeke native farmers who was killed right in front of his wife is Mr Hezekiah Oluwole while the widow who escaped being killed by the Ife hoodlums, is Mrs Banke Oluwole, who is fortunate enough to be alive to tell the story.
“Information has it that the Ife hoodlums who spared the life of the wife of the Modakeke farmer because she feigned having originated from Ashipa in Ife-North Local Government Council Area of Osun State, threatened to kill the baby she was backing if it was a boy and that what eventually saved the life of the baby from the assailants was because of her female gender.
However, he sympathised with the victims of the heinous crimes in the two communities, while enjoining them not to drag the communities into a personal rift as we need continuous peace in Ifeland which is the antidote for meaningful development rather than promotion of avoidable turmoil.
He called on the Inspector-General of Police to direct the state Commissioner of Police to work closely with the state government with a view to investigating, arresting and arraigning the sponsors and foot soldiers of the avoidable mayhem in the overall interest of the two communities who have been co-habiting peacefully for ages.
