Youths in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, under the aegis of Ekiti APC Youths Congress (EAYC) have condemned the Special Adviser (Political) in the office of the Vice President Senator, Babafemi Ojudu for choosing to hold meeting with leaders of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, despite that the association threatened the government and people of Ekiti State over the recently introduced anti-grazing law.
In a press statement issued in Ado-Ekiti on Wednesday and jointly signed by Mr Tope Ogunkuade and Comrade Tunji Adeleye, Convener and Secretary respectively, the EAYC said it was painful that leaders of the APC like Senator Ojudu always involve themselves in actions that will set Ekiti people against the party.
The youths said it was painful that while the entire people of Ekiti State were seeing the the Prohibition of Cattle and other Ruminants Grazing in Ekiti State law, 2016 and its total enforcement beyond political party lines and were standing behind Governor Ayodele Fayose, APC leaders like Senator Ojudu could be hobnobbing with leaders of MIyetti Allah in Abuja.
When our party failed to speak out to condemn killing of fellow indigenes of Ekiti State by Fulani herdsmen, we condemned it.
We said then that support for President Mohammadu Buhari should not becloud the party’s sense of reasoning and patriotism towards Ekiti and its people.
However, instead of our leaders to join Governor Fayose to safeguard the lives of Ekiti people and the sources of their livelihood against the killer herdsmen, Senator Ojudu, again took the ridiculous step of holding meeting with leaders of the herdsmen, not minding that they openly threatened to invade Ekiti State.
At such a meeting, we would have expected that Senator Ojudu would ask the Miyetti Allah what role it played when its members invaded Oke-Ako and killed two Ekiti sons, but we were shocked to read in the newspapers that Ojudu was pacifying them.
How do we now, as a party face Ekiti people that are already seeing our party as supporting the herdsmen’s killing of our people and destruction of their farmlands?
Haven’t Ojudu now justify that belief that APC is supporting Fulani herdsmen against Ekiti people and that we value cows more than human lives?