It has been reportedly gathered that a set of people simply identified as Ako Tuntun from Modakeke have embarked on a mission of forcibly chasing farmers out of the Osun State Government Farm Reserve at F3, Araromi Oke-Odo Area, Ile-Ife.
According to a victim, Prince Adekanmi, who narrated his detailed ordeal with “Ako Tuntun”, allegedly described the people parading themselves under the umbrella of the group as being belligerent and daredevil who threatened to maim or kill anyone who refused to heed their vacation order, more so that they were all armed with guns and other weapons.
In his statement as made available to matterMATTERS247, Prince Adekanmi said his allocation was made, among others, on 18th of July, 2024 at a village called Orugudu within the F3 Government Reserved Area of Ile-Ife after he had fulfilled all the required procedures by the Osun State Ministry of Agriculture and paid the statutory amount commensurate with his desired expanse of land. According to him, two officers from the ministry led the allocation that morning which started from around 10:20am to 3:50pm. He gave the name of the officers as Engr. Ola and Mr Ganiyu.
Prince Adekanmi, who was so detailed in his explanation, confidently told matterMATTERS247 that he had the video that covered the whole procession of the allocation (same made available to matterMATTERS247) which the group simply identified as Ako Tuntun from Modakeke now claiming to have been fully cultivated by their kinsmen and so could not be allocated by government to anybody again.
Adekanmi who said he was so keen about securing a safe haven for his plantation, confirmed that he saw a few banana or/and plantain suckers newly planted dispersedly on an average of a plot and half of the ten acres of land in the bushy forest on the day of the allocation which he immediately called the attention of the lead allocator to, in person of Engr. Ola, who simply responded that it was the handywork of the encroachers that sneaked into the forest when they heard about the process of the allocation by the government. Prince Adekanmi said the lead allocator assured him that the land was safe and nobody could disturb his cultivation there.
He said the group claimed that the whole area of the allocation at Orugudu was owned by Modakeke and had already been allocated to their indigenes before any interference from the government. While he (Adekanmi) asked them if they knew anything about the F3 Government Reserve in the area, he said the whited beard man that led the first squad of seven men, out of which four were carrying guns on Thursday 12th September, 2024 at around 1:25pm, retorted ridiculously that the so called F3 was nothing to them (the Ako Tuntun group) but F9 as he said such move could never go well with them but would actually end up in crisis and no government would be there in that bush to rescue anyone.
“My workers moved to the farm on the 2nd of August, 2024 to start the clearing of the farmland and they were accosted the following day by a group of people who simply identified themselves as Ako Tuntun from Modakeke. They were asked about their master and on what mandate they were there; they, being afraid of the guns the people were armed with, the workers simply told them that they were sent from Abere from the ministry of Agriculture. When I got the report on the same Saturday 3rd August, 2024, I called Engr. Ola who led the team that did my allocation and he told me that the workers should continue their work unperturbed. He said they should just ask for any of their names and contacts. These people kept on coming all through the one week my workers spent at the farm but they didn’t give any number to be contacted.
“My workers returned for another phase of work on the 9th of this month (September) all to see that almost all the demarcation pegs used to establish the boundaries by the ministry’s officials had been removed from their original positions and placed in the heart of my farmland while different plantings had been made right inside my farm where my workers had already cleared. Though I had already returned the pegs to their original positions, anyway. The same set of people that accosted them in their first stay at the farm came to challenge them again and they reported to me.
“I put calls through to the ministry people to report the case – Mr Ridwan, Mr Akeem and Engr. Ola who all told me to tell my workers to continue their work in as much as they were not attacked. I personally got to the farm on 11th September, 2024 and I was there till Friday 13th. One batch of this land marauding gang came to challenge me personally on 12th September, 2024; they were seven in number with four armed with guns. They were led by one whited beard man who told me that all the places tagged F3 Government Farm Reserve there were located right inside Modakeke and it’s no other thing but F9 on the part of the government; the statement which I clearly understood to mean a sarcastic insinuation of government’s failure to have allocated such land to anybody, though by their own interpretation. He said he started his adventure into the forest through timber business.
“While I asked who they were, the lead told me they were Ako Tuntun from Modakeke and the town had appointed him to do the allocation to the indigenes and no alien could wrestle land with them on their ancestral soil. I told them that government allocated the place to me and he retorted that no government would be there in the bush to share the risk with me if I insisted. He said one of their kinsmen had already cultivated the land and planted plantain on part of the land but I insisted that I didn’t meet the place cultivated but the few newly planted plantain suckers seen in the forest on the day of the allocation were reported to the allocators. I told him I had the full video of the allocation procession as evidence to show how bushy the forest was but he refused to listen. He only threatened by telling me how some men were given the beating of their life by them recently in the area. I later got to know that he was referring to the ministry’s surveyors who were beating by the same Ako Tuntun gang two weeks to the time of the incident.
“The worst happened on the morning of Friday 13th September, 2024 at about 10:20am as the gang came belligerently in their number! They were thirty-one altogether, including a woman, with seventeen of them carrying all forms of guns and other machetes. They came with the same narrative but I was resolute and stood my ground. They were all ranting with different unprintable name-calling and curses, telling me to leave in my own interest. I told them to their faces that their actions would boomerang eventually because even in the warfront, guns shouldn’t be wielded than this. I am sure the over amplified lawless Fulani headsmen and cattle rustlers couldn’t do the worse. I told them categorically that I was going to report them to the government and the whole world that they came to chase me out of the land statutorily allocated to me by the Osun state government at gun point. I requested for their mobile numbers and their leader’s identity as required by the ministry’s official but they all declined. I only managed to extract the identities of two of them from their conversation which were simply called Easy and Alaga. However, they didn’t hide the identity of Ako Tuntun and Modakeke. While they asked me from which town I came from, I told them such question was an aberration since they all declined to reveal their identities and mobile numbers, myself would not be that stupid to answer such a question. On that note, they resolved to chase us away immediately at gun point at around 10:58am, leaving all the cocoa and oil palm seedling purses which cost me hundreds of thousands of naira on the farmland unplanted. The whited beard man among them that led the Thursday’s squad later told me that if I came back to my farm, I was coming to die as he was muttering some incantations!
“Meanwhile, the traditional head of the area where the farm was located, Baale Orugudu who doubles as Okun Ora Oranfe, in person of Chief Idowu Otunba, had earlier come to see me same day on the farmland. The Chief who narrated the story behind the area to me, made me to know that he had to give in to the government order when the issue of the allocation came up because he had been the one cultivating the whole area before the government’s injunction, including where was allocated to me which Ako Tuntun warlords are now laying claim to. Baale made mention of how one Mr Segun Adedoyin who was a timber businessman from Modakeke first came to fell timbers in the forest few years ago, on whose influence others parading themselves as Ako Tuntun now invaded the place. He also told me how the whole farm, about 1000 acres, was mysteriously razed in conflagration”. Prince Adekanmi narrated.
“On the final note, I am using this medium to call on the governments at all levels, especially the Osun state government and His Imperial Majesty, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, to quickly wade in into this volatile and life-threatening matter before the whole thing degenerate to unpalatable and fatal issue in the state and particularly in Ifeland. It is better nipped in the bud now by all the authorities that be before Ako Tuntun turns the whole reserved forest of F3 into a war zone. Truth to be told, I don’t see any truce in sight with these set of people, even with all efforts and the peace advocacy of Baba Ooni because these people keep on tearing peace in pieces at all fronts and in different places on daily basis while they keep on pretending as peace lovers on the surface. Peace to me, is not necessarily the absence of war but the presence of justice. Therefore, to start with, all involved in this unlawful and belligerent actions at government reserved area for that matter should be brought to book immediately by making sure that the law takes its full course duly without delay on the perpetrators. They threatened my life and that of my workers if found around the farm again; and they are resolute to destroy the crops and plantations on the farm. Therefore, I call on the government to make sustainable provision for safety of lives and properties in the area in order to sustain peace and to achieve the food security objective any government could think of at this critical period of time in the nation. It should also be noted by the government that records must be put straight on the farmland allocations at F3 to avoid this kind of outright violation of law and order in the future.” Prince Adekanmi concluded.
