We Can Protect Yoruba Land Without Police, Say Traditionalists, Hunters

A group of traditional religion adherents called the Association of Ajo Esin Abalaye Adulawo of Nigeria, have promised to use spiritual powers to secure lives and properties of the people in Yorubaland in the absence of police and other security agents.

The group said this just as the Soludero Hunters also told the WHISTLER that they would step up their activities to ensure security of lives and properties in their areas of operations in Yorubaland.

The President of the Association of Ajo Esin Abalaye Adulawo of Nigeria,
Dr Olalekan Atanda, said in a statement that the group would
deploy spiritual powers to secure Yorubaland should the police and other security agents continue to ignore distress calls by the people.

The National President of Soludero Hunters, Nureni Ajijolaanobi, spoke in an interview with our correspondent.

Atanda said members of the group would use spiritual forces to make the region safe if they were called upon, saying Yoruba people had no police nor army before the colonial masters came and they ensured security.

He urged the people in the region to be law abiding but warned criminals that there were many ways through which security could be enforced in Yorubaland even without carrying any weapon.

The statement read in part, “We are aware of the slow or lack of response to distress calls by security agencies, especially the police.

“We want to remind all those saddled with the task of securing the country, Yorubaland in particular that our forefathers kept our land safe without relying on either the police or the army for several centuries.

“Spiritual powers that our ancestors bequeathed to us are still available. They used the powers and we believe in the efficacy of the powers. In our capacity as leaders of traditional religion adherents, we would not mind deploying our traditional powers to keep Yorubaland safe.”

The President of Soludero Hunters also said the group had been working alongside with the police to improve security in the South-West states, saying they would do more now that the morale of policemen seemed to be very low due to attacks against them.

He said, ” We just trained more of our members on Friday and we have deployed them. We know the criminals in our areas and we understand the terrains more than government security agents so we will not allow criminals to take over here.

” We have our members all over the states in Yorubaland and we will work harder at this time to make our people safe. We do this because of our desire to make our areas and the people safe and we will not stop doing that.”