The Arewa Consultative Forum and the Northern Elders Forum warned on Monday of an impending descent into anarchy following renewed security advocacy by Yoruba activist Sunday Igboho, who has intensified public calls for stronger action against criminal elements operating across southwestern Nigeria.
The two prominent northern sociopolitical organisations expressed concern about the potential for Igboho’s statements to inflame ethnic tensions between Yoruba and Fulani communities in the southwest, particularly given the unresolved Oyo school abduction crisis and the continued targeting of rural farming communities by criminal networks. They urged the federal and Oyo State governments to caution Igboho against rhetoric they said could destabilise an already tense social environment.
Igboho Defends His Position
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Igboho responded swiftly through his spokesman, Olayomi Koiki, rejecting what he described as a deliberate misrepresentation of his advocacy. He said his fight against kidnapping, banditry, rape, and killings had never been directed at any ethnic group and that he had consistently maintained a position focused on criminal behaviour rather than ethnic identity.
Igboho said those calling on the government to caution him should instead channel their energy toward supporting stronger security measures against criminals, protecting vulnerable communities, and ensuring justice for victims of violent crime. He argued that insecurity was a national problem that required collective action rather than blame-shifting or ethnic diversions.
Tensions Mirror Broader Farmer-Herder Dynamics
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However, the ACF said the framing of security discussions around specific ethnic groups, even indirectly, was deeply unhelpful in a country where farmer-herder tensions remained a live and dangerous fault line. The NEF separately warned that government inaction on the northern community’s concerns about the use of ethnically charged security language could inflame passions beyond manageable limits. Notably, a resident of the attacked Plateau community separately alleged the assailants were suspected Fulani militants, a characterisation that also risks deepening inter-ethnic tensions. Consequently, Nigeria’s security discourse is increasingly entangled with ethnicity, ideology, and competing political agendas in ways that present a growing challenge for national cohesion.
