Akeredolu, Buhari, Speaker, Priests and others comment on the Owo church attack.

 

Gunmen showered gunfire on St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, yesterday afternoon, killing 50 parishioners and signalling the onset of a massacre of the innocent in the South.

Family members, children, and pregnant women were among those slaughtered.

According to another eyewitness, the attackers, who were dressed as worshippers, exploded devices presumed to be dynamite and then opened fire on churchgoers.

Rev. Father Andrew Abayomi, one of the church's priests, who described how the church was attacked, reported the incidence to the world.

"We were going to wrap up service," Abayomi explained. When we started hearing gunfire from various angles. "We took refuge inside the church, but when the attack occurred, some people had already left." For 20 minutes, we were stuck inside the church. We opened the chapel as soon as we heard they had left and took the wounded to the hospital."

The killers, four in total, arrived at the church a few minutes before 11 a.m. in a Volkswagen Golf vehicle parked at the church's door, according to reports.

The bodies were taken to the Federal Medical Centre in Owo, as well as the Catholic Hospital and several private facilities in the town.

A church member, Kehinde Ogunkorode, also described how the attack took place.

"It was like a movie; they invaded the church and shot indiscriminately," Ogunkorode said. Several individuals, including children and women, were slaughtered. They tossed dynamite inside the church when they sought to kidnap the priest."

Another source confirmed that no fewer than 25 bodies were removed from the church, with several of the victims being treated at the Federal Medical Centre in Owo.

"Some gunmen attacked the church during service, opened fire, and killed no less than 25 members of the church," the source added.

"The killers took the congregation off guard. They used explosives as well, but several of them were shot."

Herdsmen are to blame for the killings, according to an Ondo politician.

Meanwhile, Olayemi Adeyemi, a politician in the House of Assembly representing Owo, Constituency II, claimed that those who stormed St Francis Catholic Church were armed Fulani herders.

"The gunmen infiltrated the religious premises with explosives, which they exploded before unleashing live shots on members while church service was happening," Adeyemi told reporters in Owo.

The attack was retaliation for Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, who had drove away violent Fulani pastoralists from the area.

President Muhammadu Buhari, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila; Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams; Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-political group; and Professor Banji Akintoye, leader of Ilana Omo Oodua They were unanimous in their condemnation of the heinous deed.

President Muhammadu Buhari, said those responsible would face eternal sorrow both on earth and in the afterlife.

"Only fiends from the nether realm could have imagined and carried out such diabolical conduct, eternal torment awaits them both on earth here," the President stated in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina.

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