Human rights activist and respected legal counsel, Mr Femi Falana (SAN) has declared unlawful and wrong, the eviction order issued by Sunday Adeyemo, more known as Sunday Igboho, to Fulani herders in the Ibarapa LGA of Oyo State, Njenje Media News reports.
Falana, made his position known in a BBC interview on Wednesday, January 27, wherein he said;
“With profound respect under our laws, even a squatter cannot be ejected and that is why on a daily basis, tenants are given quit notices by landlords or owners of properties.”
“So, a private citizen cannot wake up and say anybody should leave the community, you must embrace the rule of law. Nobody can do that, not even the government because section 43 of the constitution says every citizen shall have the right to own and acquire properties in any parts of the country.”
“The campaign of the human rights community is that if you are born in a place, or you have lived for not less than ten years in any part of the country, you should be considered an indigene and be entitled to all the rights and privileges of the so-called indigenes of the state. So, for me, there is no way I can embrace anyone who has given quit notice to any group of people.”
“We must stop the idea of criminal profiling. If anybody has committed an offence or a group of people has committed an offence, we must fish them out and have them tried under the law but you can’t wake up and say all Yoruba people, all Hausa people are criminals, all Igbo people are criminals. No, it is a fallacy of generalisation.”
Njenje Media News recalls that Igboho had issued the seven-day eviction as a result of kidnappings, killings and invasion of farmlands in Ibarapaland by criminals alleged to herders.
At the expiration of the ultimatum, Sunday together with his followers forcefully evicted the Seriki Fulani, Salihu Abdukadir and the herders from the community.
