Ife 21: Afenifere raises legal team

Foremost Yoruba group, Afenifere, has raised a le­gal team to defend 21 in­digenes of Ife, Osun State, who were recently paraded by the police over the mayhem in the town.

Over 40 people were killed in the ethnic violence between the people of Ife and Hausa living in the area.

In a statement issued by Af­enifere National Publicity Sec­retary, Mr Yinka Odumakin, he described the action of the police as “illegal and unconstitutional.”

Odumakin said that Afenifere would resist the undue deploy­ment of federal might to settle ethnic scores.

He said: “As a first step in this regard, we have assembled a powerful team of lawyers to en­force the fundamental human rights of the 21 abducted Yoruba persons.

“It is a settled law that the in­vestigation and trial of suspects must take place at the sce-ne of the crime. We are appreciative of the many lawyers of Yoruba ex­traction who have taken up this challenge pro bono.

“The legal team will challenge this subversion of due process while political pressure contin­ues on why two communities will be involved in a fight and only members of one commu­nity will be put on trial by the police whose leadership is of the same ethnic group with the other party in the conflict.

“We restate the fact that the Arewa group started the killings in Ife by killing a Yoruba young man. This is clearly missing in the skewed report by the police,” he said - THE AUTHORITY