Yorubas and the Impending Fulani Bandits War

By Mogaji Wole Arisekola

Maybe you’re wondering what the next six years will look like for our region. Here’s the blunt truth: we are on the knife-edge of a national disaster — this is not about if, it’s about when. Marauding Fulani bandits are trampling into the Southwest, and they are being nurtured by northern political patrons and sheltered by cowardly collaborators in our own ranks.

These are not the peace-loving Fulani families our grandparents knew. These are organised killers with one mission: occupy, displace and take. Their footprints are visible in Kwara, Kogi and parts of Oyo. Farmers tremble at dawn; markets shutter before nightfall. Ordinary people no longer own the dark hours.

Some northern politicians have done more than look the other way — they have given cover, patronage and political oxygen to these criminals. That silence and complicity turned raids into occupation. Buba Galadima’s own admissions about shielding Fulani interests at the highest levels when OPC grew powerful should set off alarm bells. Under Buhari, extremist networks were not weakened — they were emboldened, exported, and woven into the fabric of power.

Do not let anyone dress this up as a complex debate. This is about land, power and survival. History proves the pattern: Kwara was Yoruba until Afonja invited Alimi — and Ilorin became a lesson in betrayal. Invite an outsider, and you risk losing your home. That bitter lesson is being replayed today by chiefs and politicians who sell short their people for short-term advantage.

The rot is not only outside us. Yoruba politicians entertaining the promoters of these armed gangs are acting like vultures. They are old, self-serving men looking to secure loot and legacy for their children. They wrap their treachery in religion and respectability — but their bargains stink of betrayal. They must be exposed, embarrassed, prosecuted and electorally crushed.

Listen to the logic some northern leaders spin: Governor Bala Mohammed’s claim that “Fulanis do not have an ancestral home; they can live anywhere” is not philosophy — it’s a green light to colonise. Mobility used as an excuse to erase indigenous rights is a political doctrine of theft. We must call it what it is.

Yet Yorubas are not helpless. Our forefathers — the Ibadan warriors — paid the supreme price to stop Ilorin-style emirates from swallowing our land. We recall Balogun Ogunmola, Balogun Ajayi Ogboriefon, Aare Latoosa — men who did not bargain away their people for comfort. Their courage was not revenge; it was defence. We invoke that spirit not to swell the ranks of chaos, but to demand organised, lawful resistance: local security auxiliaries that operate legally, civic mobilisation, political pressure, documentation and court action.

The Islam practiced in Yorubaland arrived through Malian traders, not conquest. Do not let those who trade our future be mistaken for patriots. The fanatics and their Yoruba collaborators who sell our farms and towns will be publicly identified, politically neutralised, and defeated at the polls and in the courts. That is justice, not vengeance.

Here is what we must do — and do quickly:

• Expose and prosecute: Civil society must document incursions, produce evidence, and force transparent investigations into politicians who facilitate occupation. Where laws are broken, arrest and prosecute. Public humiliation in the press and the ballot box must follow.
• Modernise lawful defence: Ibadan hunters and community defence groups must professionalise — training, registration, oversight, and cooperation with state security. No extra-judicial theatre; disciplined auxiliaries that protect people and property under the law.
• Reclaim the economy: Reopen farms, secure market routes, and organise armed, legal convoys if necessary with state blessing. Boycott businesses and politicians who bankroll invaders. Starve their patronage networks.
• Rally our leaders: Kabiyesi, His Imperial Majesty Oba Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, must be the rallying point for a united political and moral front. Traditional authority matters when institutions fail.
• Use the ballot box: Vote out collaborators. Finance fact-checking and evidence campaigns. Turn every betrayal into a campaign slogan until the betrayers are gone.

This is not a sermon; it’s an order. Yorubas must weed the enemies in their midst — whether they wear crowns, clerical collars or suits. We must pursue them with audits, prosecutions and electoral fury. Let the traitors be stripped of influence, resources and office. Let no child of ours wake to find the farm gone.

Do not be sentimental. Do not equivocate. The next decade will be bloody in consequence if we are cowardly in action. The choice is clear: organise, expose, defend — or be forced from our land by stealth and treachery.

A stitch in time saves nine. For the sake of our children and our heritage, the time to strike with law, pressure and organised civic force is now.

Mogaji Wole Arisekola writes from Ibadan.