Ondo: Gbalegi Village Under Siege.
By Olusegun HOSEA. 26th June, 2024.
The people of Gbalegi community in Idanre local government of Ondo State are living under palpable fear as hoodlums are attacking them constantly and destroying their cocoa farm land. It was gathered from a reliable source that the thugs came in, in their large numbers and invaded their community claiming that the land belongs to them. That they owned the land starting from Ijoka in Akure to Technical College in Idanre.
The reports has it that this particular community has been in existence for the past 400years and that they have been living and farming peacefully without any problems until recently when the hoodlums came to the community with Cutlass, cudgel and gun to chase away the people and destroyed their farming activities and other valuable items were carted away in the cause of their nefarious activities.
Those community members that affected said complaints were made to relevant authorities, like Police, DSS and Civil Defence and to the Authorities of Ondo State Government who told them to calm down that they will wage into the crisis but the more all these Agencies intervene the more the crisis persist .
A community leader , Blessing Akintomide who spoke with our correspondence expressed dismay on the level of distruction these hoodlums have caused the community . They have budosed acres of land that has cocoa.
The people that planted yams, maize and others farming products were chased away from their land . We don’t know what really caused their grievance this time. The causes has affected farming, feedings and so on. They came three days ago to attacked the community again and uprooted cocoa they didn’t plant.
They have turned that place to an armed robbery den. As a community, we see that we do not take laws into our hands but we are calling on the Ondo State government, Inspector General of Police and Commissioner of Police to come to our Aid as they do not want to take laws into their hands .