But, Prof., beware of dismissing any piece of news coming from the homeland these days even if some fellows from home are denying them. It's a volatile situation right now. Denials sometimes also have their own political undertones. It all depends on who is denying what - if you know what I mean. You just have to sift through and extract truths from what folks call "Ìròhìn òkèèrè" - often fraught with truths, exaggerations and blatant lies.
Permit me to intervene a bit here. . .
I am also familiar with the Ifewara conflict. I think I am fairly close to that community, having a medium-size farmland there, plus the fact that one of our workers here is from there. I have also spent some time the last few days finding out what has actually precipitated these constant conflicts. The Ifewara problem has been age long! The town is a cultural and linguistic confluence. It's a community caught between Ile-Ife and Ilesa, although physically closer to Ilesa. Yes, violence has been on-going there for the last three days but there has always been clashes among the native Ifewara people (comprising the major town of Ifewara - home of RCCG's G.O. Pastor Enoch Adeboye - plus some seven or so smaller villages) and the Hausa-Fulani settlers. Anything could trigger violence there, and in the last three years, we've had major confrontations leading to nothing less than half a dozen merciless killings, mostly hatching with machetes. However, the main bone of contention is always in gold mining. That area is a huge nucleus of gold deposit, and so is a hub for illegal gold mining activities of the Hausa-Fulani folks making it difficult for farmers to do their farming (I have first-hand information on this aspect). Of course, there are Yoruba gold traders that capitalize on the situation, ironically getting the crumbs sold to them by Hausa-Fulani miners. Most Yoruba there are farmers but 100% of the Hausa-Fulani dwellers are gold miners.
Compounding the problems, and to be fair to the Hausa-Fulani community of Ifewara, is the fact that the monarch of Ifewara has provided vast landed properties to the Hausa-Fulani folks and he even made one rich Fulani gentleman one of his major chiefs. The latter in turn used his position to bring in miners north of the Niger to the extent that it is believed that today the actual population of Ifewara is more of Northerner migrants than the indigenous Ifewara people (I don't have a way of confirming that fact), and that has been a major fight between the Ifewara people and their Oba. If it were to be in the US, the new generation Hausa-Fulani should claim being native to Ifewara, having been born there. The folks speak Yoruba with native fluency and the vast majority live peacefully there.
Sadly, the constant conflict has forced the beauty of the area to be oblivious to the world. Ifewara is beautifully hilly, an extension of the Yoruba Hills. Most farms (cocoa, plantains, palm trees, cassava, and more recently, moringa, kokoyams, pineapples, etc) are on hilly slopes. Entering Ifewara from Ile-Ife is an ultra-modern resort area built by Pastor Adeboye on the hill (I think it's called Mount Horeb or Mount Carmel - one of the popular mountains in the Bible). It is breathtaking! For those who have been to Southern California, it is a resort that looks like homes in Malibu, Burbank, North Hollywood, etc). It has hotel accommodations, cafeteria, a huge visitors' welcome center, spacious parking areas, even folks can rent individually built gazebo-like single room "huts" for prayer during the day (N1000/day). Adeboye's wife also has a huge school on the eastern end of the town. But few go to this place. I'm not even sure if the General Overseer himself frequents the place - maybe once a year or even less. It's like a paradise in the wilderness. Sporadic violence has veiled the beauty from people's eyes. Hopefully, with a new state government in place, some of these conflicts should be resolved.
It's my half a penny viewpoint.
Michael O. Afoláyan
On Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 9:21:31 PM GMT+1, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
At 1 am, someone woke me up (as if I sleep!) that the Fulani, about 600 of them, had overrun the city of Ifewera, close to Ilesa. and I should wake up call some state governors. I took it seriously, trying to reach Pastor Adeboye who is from there. I was told that the churches are full of people. I could not sleep.
It turns out not to be true.
All of us must exercise caution. If something is not true, we should not be party to it. What people now call "Fulani" is becoming an accumulation of those they don't like—Yoruba thieves, Igbo kidnappers and criminals are now calling themselves Fulani.
Now, Falola is APC!!!!!!
TF
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
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