Communities Clash in Osun: A Call for Urgent Government Intervention

The residents of Ilobu, located in Osun State's Irepodun Local Government Area, have fervently pleaded with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to step in and stop what they see as a deliberate plot to destroy their community.

Despite numerous court decisions in their favor, they accused their neighboring communities, Ifon-Osun and Erin-Osun, of planning constant attacks to forcibly evict them from their ancestral territory in an open letter to the president.

The letter claims that attackers from Ifon-Osun and Erin-Osun have been besieging Ilobu in recent days, burning down houses, shooting citizens, and uprooting large numbers of people.

The neighborhood characterized the attack as an unwarranted act of aggression and said that their neighbors had consistently used violence in spite of their commitment to a peaceful resolution through the legal system.

The alleged coordinated attack on Ilobu by suspected ethnic militias from Ifon-Osun and Erin-Osun on March 18, 2025, intensified the situation.

Ademola Adeleke, the state governor, has enforced a 24-hour curfew on the conflicting communities, according to Daily Trust.

Adeleke visited Ifon, Ilobu, and Erin-Osun communities in Osun State earlier on Monday to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of the communal situation.

The governor called for peace throughout the assessment and thanked the security services and other pertinent parties for their intervention.

However, in an open letter signed by Chief Kayode Olawale, national president of the Erin-Osun Progressive Union (EPU), the Erin-Osun community responded by urging the Osun State government to restructure the Boundary Dispute Panel Initiative in order to find a long-term solution to the ongoing communal crisis.

"Deliberately misrepresents facts, distorts the truth, and attempt to portray Ilobu as innocent in this conflict," the community said of the Open Letter written by the Ilobu community stakeholders.

The community made a request for assistance from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Osun State government on behalf of the victims of the communal crisis that affected three communities: Ilobu, Ifon-Osun, and Erin-Osun.