The President general of Agbekoya Worldwode , Chief Kamardeen Aremu Okiki in this interview
with News Editor cvnewsng.com , Adewusi Adeyinka spoke about the modus operandi of the society. .He also share his thoughts on the activities of the Herdsmen and the insecurity challenge the coubtry is currently facing .
Excerpts
Meeting you
My name is Chief kamorudeen okiki Aremu, am the president General of of Agbekoya world wide.
Emergence of Agbekoya and the Revolt
Agbekoya was established in 1938 by the farmers and hunters, during the time they were using BAALE Agbe as there leader the first bale Agbe was pa Ayorinde, hes from oja oba ibadan. And the first patron was oba abass aleshinloye the old inadan of ibadan then.
They did this because of what they called “ARO and OWE”, it means if you do farming for me today you have the right to call me to do farming for you too, that is ARO.
OWE means I can call you to do the farming together.
In 1967, Pa Emmanuel Ayorinde was about 90 plus years old he added over to baba Tafa Adeoye, during baba Tara ADeoyes time the association was registered as nigeria union of farmers and hunters.during that time the federal government couldn’t do without them because there was no oil except agricultural product like cocoa, groudnut, coffee and others. During this time the leader of the action group party baba OBafemi Awolowo now became there patron. It must be noted that during this period the administration was under the military government, the western region was under general Adeyinka Adebayo. Tax was very important in those days, it was a source of revenue. An individual either man or woman invade tax the individual will be taken to ibadan, Mapo hall which is till there today. Anybody that was arrested for tax invasion will be taken to the roof of that hall. Tax invasion during hat time was a serious offence and crime on like what we have today, if you invade tax as an individual you can not escape the wrath of government, you cannot move anywhere except where there was no presence of government. At a point the government called farmers that they want to increase tax and reduce the price of cocoa, the government again said women should pay the same amount of tax that men are paying, this did not augur well with farmer’s. The military association did not shift on there ground on there decision and that is how the Agbekoya revolution that is well known started.
It started in an Ijebu town before it spread across Yoruba Land The oba of Ijebu Igbo was sent out of the palace and banished
The fight got to its peak at Akanra, The fight was felt everywhere then and that’s how people have been calling the group ‘Agbe’Koya’. The battlefield then was Ogbomoso. That’s why I always say the government should not allow this to degenerate to war because it won’t be easy to control. It was during that time the king of Ogbomoso was killed. Pa Awolowo was the grand patron then and he was summoned to resolve the crisis and he called the leaders of the group like Tafa, Baba Bogun’ be, Ayalu and many others to call it off but the leaders then said the government must announce that the price of cocoa is increased. It wasn’t just the Police that fought Agbekoya; the army too joined in the fight but the government knew that Yoruba people are powerful.
After this revolt the military administration now surcom to the which of the farmer’s.cocoa price was increased while tax was reduced, this all happened during the regime of Pa Tafa Adeoye. The next regime that followed was the one of PA Awopeju Bogunbe was the third president after the death of PA Tafa Adeoye.
He registered the Nigerian union of farmers and hunters as Agbekoya. In 1998 ate immarged as a new presidential of Agbekoya society worldwide. Note that any president of the association must imerge after consulting ifa oracle, so the president of Agbekoya society is not by selection but by consulting the oracle,am the forth president of Agbekoya society. Since my assumption in office i have put things together. One of the things I i did was to parly with the president of African Development Bank,. Akinwunmi Adeshina. He has helped the Agbekoya society to achieve alot. He’s father too was an Agbekoya. Presidently we have three million five hundred and seventy two thousand members through the effort of Akinwunmi Adeshina. We have M.O. U’s with state governments like ogun state.
Herdsmen and Farmers
When I became a president in 1998 all the farmer in Nigeria were in good accord, Hausa, Igbo and youruba farmers. Note that the Agbekoya farmers are registered in 32 states of Nigeria, even then when i became the president, we had a very good relationship with the fulani herdsmen men. That time there was no Miyetti Allah, but suddenly the fulani head’s men became aggressive in nature. The aggresiveness reached its speak immediately president Mohammad Buhari came into power. At the moment you ill see that the herdsmen n fight all tribes weather Hausa. Igbo or yoruba farmers. They will take there cattle to farmers land and destroy the crops, kidnapp the farmer and rape their wives with confidence. So we begin to ask questions why all this atrocities? Is it because president Mohammed buhari is a Fulani At a point we entered a discussions with them and reach an agreement with them. About four years go they breached the agreements and became worse. Today even foreign countries see them as terrorist so any group that rape, destroy, kill and kidnap as far as am concerned is a terrorist group. Farmers don’t hate fulanis we have been together for long. All of a sudden they changed their system by saying they can take over any land. How can a fulani want to take over a yoruba or igbo land. Truly Nigeria belongs to all of us, but you cannot leave your territory and go to another man’s territory or leave your state and go to another state and say you want to claim a land.we have reported so many incidents to security agents of the fulani herdsmen , but our discovery is that the security agents have played a bad role. They have been bias in there submission, they report sometime that farmers kill cows but they will not report the death of farmers. That means they value the lifes of cow more than the lifes of men. In places like Eruwa, Oke – Ogun, Osun states, Ondo states, we have gone to report fulani herdsmen to security agents. Our submission is that the fulani heads men see them self as superior to other tribes in Nigeria and they can do anything. We the emergence of bills by some state that there shouldn’t be open grizing, their criminal activities as reduced. States like ondo state for example recently arrested cows that were grazing openly and other states are following the same foot steps so this as reduced the fulani head’s men activities.
Sunday Igboho and the Secession
Any person has his own personal opinion, the Agbekoya society can speak for them selves, the same goes to any other association. In yoruba nation as a whole they have intelligent people that can speak unbehalf of youruba people. In Agbekoya society we have the Iwarefa, this is the highest organ and the the decision maker of the Agbekoya society am also the leader of the Iwarefa group. They are six in numbers, all the six members must take a decision if three members oppose the other three a decision can not be reached so majority carries the vote in Iwarefa’s group. On the issue of youruba nation to stand on its own, we concluded that can yoruba nation stand now, the yoruba nation has fought so many wars, for instance the Kiriji wars were so many life’s were lost. So are we truly ready to stand as a nation? So this call by this individual that yoruba nation should stand alone is his option. There are so many groups in yoruba land can they come out to say we have plans to stand alone as a nation. So if we want to do this that means the whole yoruba nation will come out to cast a vote of referendum. Is an idea that the guy just brought that there should be a yoruna nation. Now look at this, before a nation can come out from a nation there is always war. Look at Sudan, look at the old Yugoslavia they scars are still there till today millions of people died. For the Agbekoya, will stand with other yoruba groups that calls for a restructuring. For this individual that is calling for a yoruba nation how many people or group are supporting him. You can not carry two legs at a time its one step after the other. For us Agbekoya we will support team-oriented of yourbas that are calling for restructuring, we will not support the minority that are calling for yoruba nation.
Agbekoya and Politics
The Agbekoya society are non partisan when it comes to politics we don’t belongs to political parties because we are business men. In nigerian politics is a dirty game, and because its dirty thats why they don’t like us. We as a group don’t belong to any political party, but that does not stop our individual members from partaking in politics. In 2015 during the general election, the Agbekoya was called to come and collect money from the political party but i refused
Youths paticipation in Farming and insecurity
Youth do not want to go to farming because they are killing them, reason been been that if they inyo mechanized farming there is in security in the land. Will government give them the assurance that they will secure there lives and property. So many youths embraced our initiative when we had a parley with African developers bank under Akinwunmi Adeshina. But when they saw farmer had been killed in there farms some of them ran away except governments come out with a tangible and serious decision on security you will see youth coming out. Insecurity has affected even investors. So many investments that suppose to come to Nigeria as been diverted to neighboring country like Ghana. The present day government are not encouraging the youth with loan.
You can’t be giving hundred thousand naira to start farming. During baba Awolowo time he encouraged the youth and the farmers.. So federal and state must encourage mechanised farming and ensure adequate loans are given to the youths and provide security
