Traditional rulers in Ogun Waterside Council on Friday stormed the Ogun State House of Assembly seeking government and security intervention in Irokun Community over plans by elements from Ondo State to install a traditional ruler within the boundary territory of the state.
The traditional rulers made the revelation at a meeting with stakeholders including officials from the State Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, led by the State Commissioner, Hon. Ganiu Hamsat, and representatives of the State Boundary Commission/State Surveyor General, Surveyor Abodunrin Omotoso.
They expressed their grievances that they could not fold their hands and watch some elements from Ondo State take advantage of the boundary between the two states and install a traditional ruler in their territory, calling on the three arms of government to take immediate action to prevent community clashes.
The traditional rulers, led by the Ojotunmoro of Abigi, Oba (Barr) Olusegun Ogunye, the Commissioner of Police, represented by Assistant Commissioner of Police (Operations) Olufemi Adaramola, and the Onirokun of Irokun Kingdom, Oba Buari Balogun, amongst others, insisted that no Ondo person can be a monarch over their communities.
The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Oludaisi Elemide, while responding during an inter-agency engagement held at the State House of Assembly Complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, sought the immediate intervention of the Dapo Abiodun-led administration and security agencies to address the alleged security concern before it escalates.
He called on the State Government to extend its infrastructural development projects to the border communities to further take charge of the areas to ward off unwarranted incursions into the boundary communities like Irokun, which by all evidence available, including land documentation and historical facts, remains a part of the state.
Elemide said that the state government had done tremendously well in the infrastructural advancement of the state, soliciting the extension of projects to all border and rural communities in the state to further prevent invasion from neighbouring states.
He enjoined the State Police Command to take full charge of security measures in the area to prevent any illegal installation of traditional rulers from the neighbouring state on Ogun State land, saying that such illegality could threaten the existing peace in the boundary communities.
Earlier in his presentation, the State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon. Hamsat, said that more infrastructural development within the boundary communities would ward off incursions from the neighbouring state, while soliciting more security presence in the communities.
Earlier, Oba Ogunye and Oba Balogun noted that more infrastructural development in the area would help prevent the invaders, thanking the State Government through the Office of the Deputy Governor, Engr. Noimot Salako Oyedele, for the different interventions in the past on the same issue.
