police arrest 20 persons over death of NSCDC personnel in Ekiti

At least 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 the wee hours of Sunday.

The violent protest which could be linked to the killing of one prominent son of the town started 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 protracted dispute with another indigen, an older person, over a parcel of land before his sudden death.
Our correspondent 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 source said the news about 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 who he was fighting over the said land.
It was later gathered that the 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 commervial and office activities were said to have paralysed as a result of the violence, just as vehicular human movement, to and from the town wete also dirupted 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 commumal crisis that would have claimed lives if the suspected man and his family had not been ferried out of town for protection in record tim.
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.

Gbenga Sodeinde, Ado Ekiti