The Oyo State Government has waded into the simmering public altercations over the boundary dispute between Osun and Oyo states.
Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Owolabi Olakulehin, the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII) and some Ibadan prominent people have been engaged in a war of words with the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi, over the disputed boundary between the two towns.
However, the state government, in a statement by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Prince Dotun Oyelade, counselled both sides of the party to the dispute to sheathe their swords.
It advised the warring parties to stop the back-and-forth blame game and allow the two state governments to continue matured discussions on the resolution to the boundary dispute.
The commissioner stated in the statement that the media feed on combustible materials such as the Oyo-Osun boundary dispute.
Oyelade noted that, while unending hostile public statements feed the media nest, such statements were injurious and distracting to what the governors of the two states were doing.
He said the two state governments believed that the protracted land dispute is not intractable, advising that traditional institutions should not be a clog in the wheel of peaceful resolution.
According to him, Governors ‘Seyi Makinde and Ademola Adeleke of Oyo and Osun states, respectively, were cooperating with the National Boundary Commission through their representatives.
The commissioner further expressed the optimism that amicable solution will be arrived at soon over the boundary dispute.
