Residents and traders of Baruten Local Council, Kwara State, who are of Yoruba extraction (Igbimo Agba Yoruba ni Ile Ibaruba), have sought the intervention of President Bola Tinubu, Kwara State government and relevant authorities in the alleged ban and attempt to expel them from the area.
  
They said many of them doing businesses in Ibaruba land were about to be sent packing over an issue between one of their leaders that reportedly made a derogatory remark on the town.
  
Speaking, over the weekend, at the Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Oyo State Council, the Chairman and Secretary of the body, Ibraheem Rabiu and Okegbenro Johnson, lamented that businesses of over 200,000 Yoruba in the area had been affected by the issue, calling for government intervention before it degenerates to ethnic crisis.
  
The duo said Yoruba and the Ibaruba people had been living peacefully before the misunderstanding, adding that quick intervention of relevant stakeholders is needed before the issue gets out of hand.
 
 A letter addressed to Kwara governor by the duo reads: “We call on Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to know whether the Kwara government endorses the actions of all the traditional rulers in Baruten Local Council and asked their subjects to ban and expel Yoruba traders from their communities.
   
“We know that the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) allows for Fundamental Human Rights, and all these are abridged for the Yoruba living in Baruten.”

the only thing they have not started doing is killing, God forbid, and we pray that such will never happen during your tenure.”
  
They called on the governor, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, to use his good offices to “save the souls” of the Yoruba in Gure, Yasikira, Okuta and Ilesha Ibaruba, where a modern Apartheid system is being operated in Nigeria, against the Constitution. 
  
They added: “We pray that Almighty Allah shall continue to guide you with wisdom that you have been using to pilot the ship of Kwara. 
  “We anticipate the positive response of His Excellency to our clarion call for our freedom and to live in Baruten.”