FOUR DEAD IN OPC-FULANI MEN CLASH - KWARA POLICE CONFIRMS

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The Oodua Peoples Congress and Fulani people clashed on Friday in Ajase-Ipo, Irepodun Local Government Area of Kwara state leaving a number of dead bodies at the scene.

The Kwara state police command reports that it found four dead bodies on the scene of the incident.

According to a statement from the police late on Friday which was signed by the command’s spokesperson, Ajayi Okasanmi, the fight occurred on Friday night in Kaara Market, Ajase-Ipo, as a consequence of miscommunication between OPC members and livestock merchants.

A weekly market where cattle, other animals like rams, sheep, goats, and fowl, as well as agricultural produce, were traded on Fridays.

Numerous members of the OPC and the Fulani livestock dealers, as well as bystanders, were hurt during the conflict, and some automobiles, buses, and other commercial vehicles had their windscreens damaged.

The OPC convoy was returning from the Osun-Osogbo festival in Osun State when the incident reportedly started on Friday at about 6.30 p.m.

It started when one of the cattle being led over the Ilorin/Omu-Aran highway by a Fulani herdsman smashed the side mirror of one of the vehicles.

According to the police, the miscommunication sparked a heated dispute that ultimately resulted in gunfire being exchanged between the OPC and the livestock traders in the market.

“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 injured were transferred to the hospital in Ajase-Ipo for medical attention, according to the police, while the four unidentified dead bodies were evacuated from the scene and deposited in the mortuary of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital.

He claimed that things had returned to normal in the neighborhood and that police officers had been stationed nearby to maintain law and order.

The Ilorin-Omu-Aran highway, according to him, is now clear after the road’s clearing and barrier removal.