By Tunde Oyekola The Kwara State Police Command has said that it recovered four corpses from the scene of the clash between members ...
By Tunde Oyekola
The Kwara State Police Command has said that it recovered
four corpses from the scene of the clash between members of the Oodua Peoples
Congress and Fulani people in Ajase-Ipo, Irepodun Local Government Area of the
state on Friday.
The police, in a statement issued late Friday, and signed by
the Command’s Spokesperson, Ajayi Okasanmi, said the clash was as a result of
misunderstanding between members of the OPC and the cattle dealers in Kaara
market, Ajase-Ipo, Friday evening.
Scores of people from both the OPC and the Fulani cattle
dealers as well as passersby were injured while some vehicles including commercial
buses and cars had their windscreen shattered in the clash.
According to the police, the crisis erupted on the evening
of Friday at 6.30pm when one of the cattle being led across the Ilorin/Omu-Aran
highway by a Fulani herdsman broke the side mirror of one of the vehicles in
the OPC convoy, who were returning from Osun-Osogbo festival in Osun State.
The police said the misunderstanding led into a serious
argument which eventually escalated into exchange of gunfire on the side of
both the OPC and the cattle dealers in the market.
Friday was Kaara Market Day, a weekly market where cattle
and other animals such as ram, sheep, goats, fowls as well as farm crops were
traded.
“Information received
by Ajase-Ipo Divisional Police Headquarters was to the effect that some OPC
members in a convoy of about 20 vehicles believed to have been coming from
Osogbo, Osun State, were passing through the Kara market where a cow being led
across the road by its handler broke the side mirror of one of the OPC
vehicles, which resulted in an argument that eventually escalated into an
exchange of gunfire by both the OPC members and the cattle dealers in the
market.
“Four lifeless bodies of unidentified persons were recovered
at the scene,” the police said in the statement.
“The immediate deployment of detachments of policemen and
teams of conventional policemen to the scene by the Commissioner of police,
Tuesday Assayomo, prevented the escalation and killings of more people.”
The police said that the four unidentified dead bodies had
been evacuated from the scene and deposited at the morgue of the University of
Ilorin Teaching Hospital while the injured had been taken to the hospital in
Ajase-Ipo for medical treatment.
He said normalcy had returned to the area while policemen
were also stationed at the scene to prevent further break down of law and
order.
He said the Ilorin-Omu-Aran highway was now free as the road
had been cleared and every obstruction removed from the road.
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