1st June, 2010
Commercial activities were paralysed yesterday at Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, Nigeria when factions of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) engaged themselves in a free-for-all.
Many people were injured and vehicles damaged during the fracas.
Following the clash, residents of the city living around motor parks left their homes to live with relatives outside the town to escape attack.
Investigations revealed that trouble started when a junior officer of NURTW refused to take orders from a superior at the Ijebu-Ode motor park.
According to a source: “The state chairman, Baruwa, caused the crisis. He believes in shedding blood. We have said that we don’t want caretaker committee again, he refused. He planted his boys there so as to continuously exploit us.
”There is a boy called Nurudeen Adedeji, a.k.a. Alagbara Oko. He came from a party at Ntebo area of Ijebu-Ode where he fought some people and later came to the motor park to fight our vice chairman, Yekeen Basheer, a.k.a. Aweda.
“He said nothing can be done to him because he has godfathers.”
P.M.NEWS gathered that the attackers came to the motor park and started shooting into the air. They allegedly destroyed many parked vehicles and wounded drivers and their conductors.
When our correspondent visited the motor parks in Ijebu-Ode yesterday, businesses were paralysed following the clash.
One of the youths at the motor park identified as Oju Eje, warned of more bloodshed if the caretaker committee was not dissolved.
“Anyone afraid of being killed cannot fight for his father’s property. We cannot continue with this rubbish. Enough is enough,†he stated.
—Abiodun Onafuye/Ijebu-Ode