Dr Fatai Aborode: I visited Igangan, in Oyo Town, and Here is What I Found about his Death
Neusroom’s Michael Orodare writes about his visit to Igangan, a small town about 160km from Lagos brought to prominence by Dr Fatai Aborode’s death.
Until December 2020, Igangan, an agrarian community about five hours drive from Lagos, was in a relative obscurity. The murder of one man – Dr Fatai Aborode, on Friday December 11, 2020, brought the town into national prominence.
Multiple reports say persons suspected to be Fulani herdsmen killed him. The intervention of Sunday Igboho, a self-styled Yoruba activist, and his seven-day ultimatum to Fulani dwellers further put the town in the spotlight.
The buzz generated by Igboho’s directive relegated the most important conversation to the background – the murder of a businessman, who left his family in the UK and returned to Nigeria to make life better for his people.
The Nigerian government was quick to condemn Sunday Igboho’s eviction notice but authorities ignored the murder.
At 6am on Saturday February 27, 2021, I left Lagos for Igangan. I arrived in Ibadan at some minutes past 8am. One of my hosts, Wale Oladokun, a university lecturer was waiting to receive me at Iwo road.
We headed for Eleyele where his younger brother Oladiran joined us. The journey to Igangan lasted for more than three hours including a one hour stop over at Igbo-Ora where we met Adedeji Oluwole, the Abuja Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC). He told us of how he intercepted suspected Fulani herdsmen with guns and handed them over to the police on Friday February 26, 2021.
Igangan forms part of Ibarapa Meje (the seven Ibarapa towns) – Igboora, Eruwa, Igangan, Lanlate, Ayete, Tapa and Idere. It is about 130km away (2 hours, 30 minutes drive) from Ibadan, Oyo State capital.
The Isamuni Hill at Ayete, one of the tourist attractions in Ibarapa that residents believe the government left undeveloped. Photo: Michael Orodare. Designer: Tonte Briggs.
Oladokun, who is the President of the Igangan Development Advocate, told me Igangan is about two hours to the unguarded northern Benin Republic by motorcycle through the forests. And the “forests have become dangerous routes for moving ammunition and all manner of contraband into Nigeria.”
Igbo-Ora, the headquarters of Ibarapa Central, is considered the twin capital of the world because of the high number of twin births in the community. The ‘Ibarapa Meje’ are multiethnic communities and home to the majority indigenous Yoruba and migrant minority groups including Fulani herders.
Aside from farming, charcoal production is a major source of revenue in Ibarapa. On my way to Igangan on Saturday February 27, 2021, I saw trucks heading for the towns. I was told they were going to buy charcoal for export.
Igangan, Idere, Ayete are also fertile lands for cashew in exportable quantity. But the ‘Ibarapa Meje’ have not seen much development, Igangan has suffered years of neglect from successive governments, the residents told me during my visit.
Trucks along Ibarapa highway heading into the towns to move charcoal. An estimated 35,000 bags of charcoal are moved weekly from Ibarapa, says a report by U.S National Center for Biotechnology Information.
The town has no standard public health center. To access healthcare service, residents travel for about 40 minutes through Tapa, Ayete, Idere to Igbo-Ora to access the Comprehensive Health Centre and other private hospitals. It’s a long ride, and many emergency patients don’t make it to Igbo Ora before passing, residents told me.
On our way to Igangan from Ibadan, Oladokun told me “we need to do everything as fast as possible, so we can return to Ibadan before dusk.”
His reason, the roads are not safe. The Iseyin-Igbo Ora-Abeokuta highway is the most dangerous in Ibarapa land. A popular herbal medicine practitioner, Fatai Yusuff, aka Oko Oloyun was shot dead on that road in January 2020.
I counted about four police checkpoints between Eruwa junction and Igbo-Ora and about 10 police, immigration, military and customs checkpoints from Ido to Igangan. Yet travellers commute in fear.
Since 2015, banditry, attacks on farmers and abduction of travellers for ransom in different parts of Nigeria have taken a dangerous dimension. Ibarapa is not left out of the trend, and residents claim Fulani herdsmen are responsible for most of the attacks.
The 2020 Global Terrorism Index (GTI) says Fulani extremists were responsible for 26% of terror-related deaths in Nigeria in 2019.
This forced southwest governors to set up a local security network – Amotekun, in 2019, but it has done little to stem the attacks.
The many atrocities of persons described as Fulani herdsmen in their host communities and years of reported terror in Igangan was the reason Dr Aborode’s murder was easily linked to them.
Alhaji Aborode suspects his son’s death may have been swept under the carpet if Sunday Igboho had not intervened. Photo: Olamide Fawole, Designer: Tonte Briggs.
His murder did not immediately make headlines until youths in the community led by the Igangan Development Advocates staged a protest at the Oyo governor’s office in Ibadan on Tuesday December 15, 2020. Then Sunday Igboho stepped in with his visit to Igangan in January 2021.
“In my life, I have never seen such a crowd before in this community,”Alhaji Lasisi Aborode, Dr Aborode’s father, told me while narrating how Sunday Igboho’s visit excited the community and brought his son’s death to public knowledge.
From the two hours I spent in Igangan speaking with Alhaji Aborode and other residents, I realised there is more to the death of Dr Aborode than what I could see sitting in my Lagos office.
As his father and others claimed, Dr Aborode’s murder appears to be a conspiracy between politicians and herders.
Read full story on Neusroom Feature
