Killing of NURTW leader sparks protest in Kwara

Members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Ajase, Irepodun Local Government Area, Kwara State on Saturday blocked the highway to protest alleged killing of their leader by the police.
Pandemonium broke out when a middle-aged man identified as Akeem Laduba, an NURTW leader in Ajase, was allegedly shot dead by a police patrol team.
Laduba, who was the Chairman of Ajase-Omu-Aran-Kabba unit of NURTW was said to have been killed along Igbaja-Ajase-Ipo Express Way, Kwara State.
An eye witness said on condition of anonymity that the deceased was trying to intervene in a brawl between the police team and a commercial motorcyclist.
According to the source, Laduba was on his way to Offa, a nearby community, when he stumbled on a police patrol beating up a commercial motorcyclist in the early hours of Saturday.
The source alleged that it was in the process of the deceased trying to intervene in the ensuing melee that he was attacked by the policemen who had queried the rationale behind his intervention.
According to the source, the victim became unconscious after he was hit by the bullet and was immediately rushed to a nearby private hospital by the police team where he later died.
“Although, I don’t know what the offence of the commercial motorcyclist was, but he was being beaten when the man (deceased) tried to save him.
“And in that process, one of the policemen attacked him, the man retaliated and then the policemen fired a shot,” the source said.
Some members of the union had, in showing their displeasure on the development, stormed and blocked the highway while chanting war songs.
Vehicles going to the neigbouring Kwara towns such as Oke-Onigbin, Omu-Aran, Offa and other states as Otun in Ekiti and Osogbo in Osun were denied passage by the rampaging union members.
Though the members had since left the highway, vehicles passing the route were forced to carry leaves on them in sympathy for the deceased.
The Kwara State Police Public Relation Officer, Mr Ajayi Okasanmi, while confirming the incident, said that the shot fired “was not intentional”.
“It is true a shot was fired by a policeman, but it was not intentional.
“It was even the police that took the man to the hospital but unfortunately, he died later,” he said.