No fewer than 20 persons have been arrested by the police over a violent protest carried out by some youths in Aiyegbaju Ekiti, a major town in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti state between Saturday and wee hours of Sunday
Our correspondent gathered that trouble began to brew on Saturday when news filtered into town that a young man, identified to be an indigene of the town and doubles as an officer of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, (NSCDC), Samson Omowunmi died in a mysterious circumstance.
According to a community source, the deceased was involved in a dispute with another indigene, an older person, over a parcel of land before his sudden death.
It was learnt that Omowunmi suddenly developed strange sickness during the week, and had to be rushed to an undisclosed hospital where he later died on Saturday evening.
The death of the deceased did not go down well with his fellow youths in the town who suspected that he might have been killed through remote diabolical means by the person with whom he was fighting over the said land.
Angry youths mobilised themselves in large number and marched through the streets shouting war songs, even as they demanded the head of the man suspected to be responsible for Omowunmi’s death.
They were said to have also besieged the private home of the suspected man, and attempted burning down the property.
Both commercial and office activities were said to have been paralysed as a result of the violence, just as a vehicular and human movement, to and from the town was also disrupted during the period.
The early arrival of men of the state police command in the town was said to have saved the situation from degenerating into a full-blown communal crisis that would have claimed lives if the suspected man and his family had not been ferried out of town for protection in record time.
State Police Public Relations Officer, (PPRO) Alberto Adeyemi confirmed the violence and arrest of the 20 persons, saying full-scale investigation had commenced concerning the incident.
He said his men quickly moved to action when hinted about the youths’ disturbance, adding that normalcy had started returning to the town after police successfully secured the community taking positions at every trouble spots.
He warned residents against taking laws into their hands whenever they are aggrieved under whatever circumstance.
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