L
LequteMan
Guest
Calm has returned to Ile-Ife, Osun state following the bloody clash between Yorubas and Hausas in the area which claimed many lives and properties.
Hausas are returning to the area in trickles and the Oja Tuntun (New Market) which was closed, has been reopened.
Nevertheless, residents are still talking about the clash.
Sade, a trader and Ife indigene, said the Hausa residents of the town are too violent for her liking.
“They were the first to attack the Yoruba. They killed an Ife man before Ife people stood up to them. They thought they had monopoly of violence, but it was when they saw that the will of the people in Ife was stronger that things changed.”
However, Afobaje of the Hausa Community in Ife, Alhaji Malami Nasidi, had a different opinion. He said the Hausas and Yorubas had been coexisting peacefully for decades before the clash.
“We and our Yoruba hosts had been living in peace for decades. Many of us have Ife indigenes as our wives. The first child of the woman, Kubura, who started this crisis, was fathered by a Hausa man. A day before this crisis, she complained to me that a Hausa boy had messed up the frontage of her shop with soup. She slapped the boy and the boy slapped her back. Her husband, one of the leaders of the Abuja Garage in the town, them mobilised his friends to beat up the boy and everybody here.
“We thought the matter had ended there, but the following day, very early in the morning, they started burning our houses and attacking us, maiming and killing our people. They also looted our property before they set our houses on fire.”
He said Ife is the only place they see as home, and hope the issue is resolved totally.
Hausas are returning to the area in trickles and the Oja Tuntun (New Market) which was closed, has been reopened.
Nevertheless, residents are still talking about the clash.
Sade, a trader and Ife indigene, said the Hausa residents of the town are too violent for her liking.
“They were the first to attack the Yoruba. They killed an Ife man before Ife people stood up to them. They thought they had monopoly of violence, but it was when they saw that the will of the people in Ife was stronger that things changed.”
However, Afobaje of the Hausa Community in Ife, Alhaji Malami Nasidi, had a different opinion. He said the Hausas and Yorubas had been coexisting peacefully for decades before the clash.
“We and our Yoruba hosts had been living in peace for decades. Many of us have Ife indigenes as our wives. The first child of the woman, Kubura, who started this crisis, was fathered by a Hausa man. A day before this crisis, she complained to me that a Hausa boy had messed up the frontage of her shop with soup. She slapped the boy and the boy slapped her back. Her husband, one of the leaders of the Abuja Garage in the town, them mobilised his friends to beat up the boy and everybody here.
“We thought the matter had ended there, but the following day, very early in the morning, they started burning our houses and attacking us, maiming and killing our people. They also looted our property before they set our houses on fire.”
He said Ife is the only place they see as home, and hope the issue is resolved totally.
