Stray bullets kill two while land grabbers ‘drag’ gun with Police in Ogun

Estimated reading time: 10 minute(s)

Sodiq Ojuroungbe

Tragedy struck in Ikogbo community in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun state on Wednesday when stray bullets reportedly killed two persons when some suspected land grabbers were allegedly dragging gun with a policeman.

PLATFORM TIMES reports that two others were hospitalised after the incident .

PLATFORM TIMES learnt that there was a land dispute between two communities in the areas ; Ikogbo and Imose .

It was gathered that attempt to enforce a court judgement on the disputed land between the two communities in favour of Ikogbo led to the bloody crisis .

According to the a source, the Onikogbo of Ikogbo,Oba Nurudeen Osoja invited some policemen to enforce the judgement and allegedly sealed houses on the disputed land .

The source said “but,the resistance of the residents forced the policemen to start shooting sporadically while one of the bullets hit one Mathew an innocent Okada rider that just came back from Lusada market and injured school children and passers-by. One of them later died.”

But, when reacting to the incident , the Police Public Relations Oofficer , Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the police were invited to rescue the situasion .

Oyeyemi confirmed that two persons died as a result of stray bullets while some suspected land grabbers were struggling over the gun with a police inspector .

He said the suspected land grabbers who he also described as cultists invaded the police station in the area and vandalised it.

He said they met a policeman and attempted to snatch a gun from him ,but, in the process they the touched the trigger and the bullets hit four persons .

According to PPRO, the command received a petition from Oba Nurudeen Osoja, the Onikogbo of Ikogbo, Ado Odo Ota on September 20, alleging threat to his life , malicious damage, armed robbery and cultism against certain individuals in the community.

“The petition was referred to the State CID for handling. A team of detectives despatched to the Community yesterday (Wednesday) on investigation, arrested four of the suspects identified by the Oba himself.

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“Following the arrest, some youths suspected to be cultists led by one Fiasco, mobilised and attacked the policemen and police station at about 3:30pm , shooting indiscriminately as witnessed by the Oba himself and corroborated by the police team.

” They vandalized the station and Fiasco himself snatched and took away one AK 47 without magazine from one Inpector at the station after much struggle.

” A patrol van donated by the Oba who built and donated the station to the community was also vandalized.

” Four members of the community received gunshot wounds. Two later died in the hospital while the remaining two are in stable condition receiving treatment.”

The PPRO however said normalcy had been restored to the communities ,adding that more police patrol teams have been deployed to beef up security.

He said four suspects have been arrested in connection with the violence .

When contacted ,the monarch said he had to invite the police due to alleged threat to life by some cultists in the other community .

The Oba said the state high court had given a judgement in his favour and after it was appealed ,the appeal court upheld the high court judgement .

According to him, a Human Rights lawyet and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana , was his lawyer and had warned him not to take laws into his hands .

He said , “we did not invade the community . I and my Chiefs went to the land with policemen , we have got the judgement ,they have appealed and we won .

“We have written the Commissioner of Police over the matter . Everything we were doing , we followed the laws . We did not take laws into our hands “.

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Estimated reading time: 1 minute(s)

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