The Osun State Police Command on Monday said it had recovered a corpse from within the precinct of the Mayfair Motor Park in Ile-Ife, Osun State, bringing the casualty figure linked to the shooting in the park to two.
This was just as the remains of Olalekan Oyeyemi, a chieftain of the Accord Party in Osun State, popularly known as ‘Emir Ajagungbade’, were interred at his newly completed residence in the Agunbelewo area of Osogbo, according to traditional rites.
PUNCH Online reports that Emir was shot dead on Sunday during a clash involving him and a group led by another leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, identified by his nickname, Sibi, at the Mayfair Motor Park in Ile-Ife.
In a video that circulated on social media, Emir was seen lying face down in a pool of blood inside a vehicle after the incident.
Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, in a statement by his spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, later confirmed Emir’s death and directed the state Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Zungura, to fish out the perpetrators of the crime.
Emir’s death has, however, been linked to the decision by some people to install him as the next Osun State chairman of the NURTW.
Giving an update on the incident, the Osun Police Command spokesperson, Abiodun Ojelabi, during an interview with journalists, said, “The governor has decided that the park should not operate. The park has not been operating. A corpse was also recovered by the police, and it has been deposited at the morgue.
“The case has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for more investigation. Those being mentioned in connection with the crime, they should go to the nearest Police station to report themselves rather than going to social media to defend themselves. The Commissioner of Police has promised that all those involved will be apprehended and face the law, irrespective of who they are.”
Meanwhile, Emir’s interment rites, performed by traditionalists, were witnessed by close family members of the deceased and priests, while his associates, who accompanied his corpse from the Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, had to wait outside the premises as the body was interred.
But before the body was released by the hospital morgue, suspected hoodlums, said to be associates of the deceased, attacked two members of staff of the hospital after discovering that they were being recorded on their phones.
Our correspondent, who was at the hospital premises to monitor developments around the incident, later observed the arrival of more police vehicles conveying operatives, which restored normalcy.
Responding to claims that he summoned Osun NURTW leaders to a meeting at his house in Modakeke on Sunday, where Emir was endorsed as the next state chairman of the union, the Osun State Commissioner for Transportation, Sesan Oyedele, while speaking with PUNCH Online, explained that leaders of various units of the union came to his house to brief him on their decision to install the deceased as their next chairman.
Oyedele had been alleged by two NURTW leaders in Ile-Ife, identified as Gbadagesin and Kazeem Akeem, in videos that circulated on social media, to have summoned them to his house and told the union leaders that the state government had endorsed Emir as the next state chairman.
But the commissioner, during the interview, dismissed the claims, saying those who spoke about what transpired at the meeting were not present when matters relating to the NURTW chairmanship were discussed.
“The person who did the video was not at the meeting I had with them. Had he been there, he would have known that what I told them was not what he said in that video. I was not in the meeting they had in Osogbo last week. After that meeting, which involved transport union members from various branches, they called me on Thursday and said they wanted to come and see me. I told them to come to my office on Monday (today), but they said they could come to my house.
“They came around 9:00 a.m. on Sunday. When they got to my house, they told me that they had all agreed that Olalekan Emir should be the next chairman, and they wanted me to support them. I told them that since that was what they wanted, I would present their case before the governor, the Chief of Staff and others when he gets back to the state. That was our agreement before they left. It was two hours after they left my house that I was called that Emir had been killed,” he said.
He appealed to the residents to remain calm, saying the crisis would soon be resolved.