22nd January, 2022
By Moses Omorogieva/Lagos
The Police Command in Lagos State on Saturday said that its men arrested some members of the National Union of Transport Workers ( NURTW) who clashed on Lagos Island on Friday.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) , CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday.
Ajisebutu did not mention how many people were arrested and where they were being detained.
He added that normalcy had returned to the Island as more operatives had been deployed there.
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“The police have quelled the crisis. Sufficient facilities were deployed in the area immediately we received a distress call and normalcy was restored.
”Investigation into the crisis is ongoing,” he said.
Two factions of the NURTW clashed over the control of some motor parks on the Island on Friday.
The videos of the clash went viral showing the hoodlums using dangerous weapons against each other
The arrests come amid call by Accord Party for a ban on the notorious union in Lagos.
Lagos State chapter of the Accord Party called on Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu to proscribe the union following repeated violence by its members.
The Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Dele Oladeji, in a statement on Saturday called on Sanwo-Olu to tame the members of the NURTW by proscribing the union with immediate effect.
“Again, the members of the NURTW were enmeshed in a deadly fight on Lagos Island which was reported to have resulted in the untimely death of some four youths.
“This deadly clash created a security scare, in which innocent and hardworking residents of Lagos had to scamper into shops, crevices, under table and inside gutters for dear lives.
“Many rushed into shops and were locked in with the shop owners, just to stay away from stray bullets or being caught up in the fracas.
“Traders were forced to shutdown their businesses, which led to the loss of transactions running into billions of naira.
“We advise the Lagos State governor to, with immediate effect, proscribe the NURTW for a peaceful and safe Lagos city.”
The spokesman said that the recent violence was one too many among the members of the NURTW in Lagos State.
Oladeji said that though members of the union were always in the habit of killing themselves during such fracas, their action had always defied the security set up in Lagos State and had always created a state of insecurity among residents.
“Ask an average resident of Lagos, and they will tell you they live and commute in utter fright of these ‘union boys’ daily on the streets and roads.
“Gov. Sanwo-Olu should rise up in service to residents of the state and proscribed these lawless group for a safer Lagos State,” he added.
He said that NURTW factions were known to frequently engage in free-for-all over power tussles at different locations and parks.