Lagos Island Boils Again As NURTW Factions Clash

Lagos Island area of Lagos State, southwest Nigeria boiled this morning as factions of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, clashed again.

Shops and vehicles were said to have been destroyed this morning while one person was reportedly killed last night when the crisis turned bloody.

Policemen have been deployed to the area to maintain peace.

P.M.NEWS gathered that supporters of Rafiu Olohunwa and MC Oluomo clashed on the Island as the crisis is said to have spread to Adeniji Adele, Campos Square and Idumota.

Pandemonium broke out in the area as people scampered to safety and hurriedly closed their shops.

A police source revealed that over 25 vehicles were destroyed during the fracas. This morning, there was an uneasy calm in Idumota, Adeniji Adele and Campos Square as most of the shops were shut.

Clashes last night and this morning were a fallout of last Friday’s clash in which a supporter of Olohunwa was said to have been killed by Oluomo’s faction of the NURTW.

Olohunwa’s faction allegedly retaliated last night by killing a supporter of Oluomo while hell was let loose thereafter as dangerous weapons were used freely.

Scores of hoodlums have been arrested over the clashes.

Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos Command, Mr. Joseph Jaiyeola told P.M.NEWS that the situation is under control, confirming that there was a violent clash between NURTW factions last night resulting in the death of one person who was axed in the neck.

“Mobile policemen and the usual ones are on standby. We have enough men on ground. We have been able to curtail the crisis,” he said.

Lagos Island East Local Council Development Area, LCDA Chairman, Kamal Salau, said the council was able to mobilise policemen to quell the crisis, adding that the situation had been brought under control.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has vowed to shut down motor parks in the state where clashes among factions of NURTW are rampant.

The government said it can no longer tolerate clashes and disturbances in some motor parks in the state as a result of the tussle by NURTW factions as to which faction should control certain parks.

“The current wave of disturbances at some motor parks in the state, especially on Lagos lsland, occasioned by the struggle for control by the different union leaders, is to say the least, very worrisome,” said the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Adeyemi Ibirogba.

“Government is not happy that union leaders have, in the recent times, been engaging in acts that threaten the public peace through their seeming adoption of violence as the means of achieving supremacy among the contenders for union positions,” he added.

Ibirogba lamented that these disturbances were going on without recourse to the law and at great risks to innocent citizens, who were now subjected to untold hardship through “this lawlessness and act of indiscipline was not acceptable to government.”

“We, therefore, call on the different union leaders to stop, forthwith, such acts of breach to public peace and allow peace to reign in all the motor parks, as government will, henceforth, take over any park where there are disturbances or violent power tussle,” said Ibirogba, in a statement.

A clash between factions of the union led to a bloody fight last Friday, resulting in the death of one person. Some victims were injured and six persons arrested in connection with the violence.

It was gathered that trouble started after the NURTW National President, Alhaji Najeem Yasin, during a closed-door meeting at the union’s Abule Egba office, stated that the Lagos State NURTW election would hold at a date to be announced later, since the five contestants to the number one seat in the state could not present a consensus candidate.

The former chairman, Alhaji Rafiu Olohunwa’s supporters were said to have been caught off guard as their expectation was that the NURTW National President would handpick and endorse their man at the meeting.

Yasin’s announcement led to clashes at Iyana-Ipaja and later on Lagos Island, where Alhaji Ola-Shehu was alleged to have been shot dead by supporters of a chairmanship candidate

—Ayodele Lawal & Kazeem Ugbodaga