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Traditional monarchs in Nigeria's southwest Osun State said on Thursday they are trying to end the bloody fighting between the Ife and Modakeke communities in the area, AFP reported.
The announcement came in the wake of more clashes between the two
communities in Aba-Gada village on Tuesday, in which seven people were reported killed. Recent fighting between the two communities began on 3 March over land ownership rights. But the dispute dates back some 150 years when the Modakeke people settled in Ife after being driven out of their former area in Oyo State.
The spokesman for the monarchs, Adekunle Aromolaran, said he hoped their intervention would yield positive results by ending the fighting. A 27-member peace committee, formed after President Olusegun Obasanjo's visit to the two Yoruba communities at the end of March, has failed to stop the feud. The committee is headed by the Roman Catholic bishop of the
Osogbo Diocese, Gabriel Leke Abegunrin, and made up of representatives of government and the two feuding communities.
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