Suspected herders have hacked to death 47-year-old farmer Chief Mutairu Oladosu on his tomato farm in Asa village, Okelade, Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State. The Otun Balogun Oluode Okelade was overpowered by three armed attackers while working alongside one of his daughters, an eyewitness told the Okelade Okin, Oba Wahab Olabamiji.
Oba Olabamiji said the incident happened last Friday and that one suspect has been arrested and handed to the police. The traditional ruler led a delegation to the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, appealing for calm after the killing. He complained that herders now graze on farms and terrorise residents, leaving locals unable to sleep peacefully.
Oba Ladoja confirmed he invited the state Commissioner of Police after community leaders reported the murder. The CP informed him that one suspect is in custody and efforts to arrest the remaining two continue. "The CP gave assurance that the matter would be duly investigated, while justice will be served on whoever is found guilty of the killing," the Olubadan said.
Oba Wahab Olabamiji's admission that he had to "prevail on my people not to allow the incident to snowball into a major crisis" reveals how close rural Oyo State teeters toward communal bloodletting when farmers are killed on their own soil.
The visit to the Olubadan's palace is not mere courtesy; it is a calculated move to keep a lid on retaliatory violence in a region where memory of the 2021 Shasha market mayhem still lingers. That only one of three named suspects has been caught, and that after a traditional ruler's intervention, underlines the chronic absence of rapid-response policing in Ido's farm settlements.
For families planting tomatoes and maize along the forested belt between Ibadan and Ogun, the message is blunt: your crops and your lives are negotiable if herders need pasture. Each unsolved murder pushes more farmers toward vigilante logic, raising the cost of food and security for every city shopper who depends on these rural supply lines.
This fits a wider pattern in south-west Nigeria: when state governments dither on establishing rural constabulary or ranching policy, palace diplomacy and ethnic nerves become the only safety valves left.
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