Afenifere raise alarm on recurrent explosions in Yorubaland

By Olanrewaju Adesanya

The Yoruba Social Cultural Organisation, Afenifere has raised alarm on the incessant explosion recorded in the South West in recent times,describing it as a seemingly targeted onslaught on Yoruba land.

Reacting to the development,Mr Yinka Odumakin,the Afenifere National Publicity Secretary raised some poser on the recurrent explosions ravaging the land,calling for thorough investigations geared towards unravelling the real reasons behind the ugly happenings.

“Afenifere expresses our heartfelt sympathy with the government and people of Ondo State over the explosion that occurred on Akure-Owo road early this morning.

“All accounts so far indicate that the explosion occurred from a possible fire incident from a vehicle that was carrying explosives through the state.

“Though the identities of the movers have not yet been known, the police have claimed they were escorting the ordinances (bombs) when they noticed some challenge.

“While we have nothing to contradict the stated accounts yet, we demand an inquiry into this disaster in accordance with Ordinance and Fiream Acts to be able to determine the type of ordinances that exploded.

Odumakin posed some salient points to tailor the inquiries to include; identifying those allegedly transporting the ordinances,the origin of the ordinances,who assigned the escorting policemen and under what circumstance.

The destination of the Improvised Explosive Devices should also be unravelled, he maintained.

“While we wait for answers, we must express our displeasure with the  rate of explosions in Yorubaland in recent time.

“First was the blast in Ekiti State in early February with  investigation blaming it on “human error”.

“This was followed by the massive explosion in Abule Ado in Lagos which was attributed to some spurious pipeline explosion,which we rejected because the long-range impacts of that explosion could not have come from pipeline explosion.

“Till date we don’t know the owners of the articulated vehicles found on the scene of the Lagos explosion while the the number of casualties and level of  suggested damage done to Catholic owned Bethlehem School suggested delibrate targeting.

“While we wait to know the level of casualty in the latest incident in Ondo, we appeal to our people to be very careful in these perilous times”.Odumakin said.