Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, Thursday in Abuja said drums of war were sounding loud and clear in all parts of the country and appealed to the federal government to avert it now.
Oba Ogunwusi, who gave this warning while answering questions from State House correspondents after holding a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, said baseless killings, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and insurgency in different parts of the country are sounds of war which he said must be quashed now before it degenerates into full-scale war.
He said: “I came to speak on behalf of other traditional rulers. The issue at hand in the south west is real. The issue of insecurity, we that live in the remote and rural areas of the south western part of the country, most of the bushes are occupied by strange people and we decided to work with the government to fish them out.
“Everybody is beating the drum of war, we don’t want war, who can stand war, we want something better for our youths.
“We should better use them for something good other than shouting war and anarchy. We don’t want that.
“We told the President that and he is on the same page with us. Politicians should be careful not to throw things out of proportion.
“We should make sure things are right and the President has given good directives to security chiefs including the IG to visit all traditional institutions in the south west.
“So for us to defend ourselves is for me to come here to meet Mr. President for us to have reinforcement. We understand our territory more than anybody. We understand our territory very well. What is important is that everybody in the South West right now, we are all on the same page. We don’t want war and we want to work with Government to defend our land,” he added.