By A shooting at the Naira and Kobo motor park in Ikire, Irewole Local Government Area, has left a commercial driver and at least one other person dead, triggering two starkly conflicting accounts of what happened, one from the ruling Accord Party and another from the opposition APC, each pointing the finger at the other side.
Both parties confirm that violence broke out at the garage on Monday, and that the dead include a commercial bus driver identified as Saheed Akinrole. Beyond that basic outline, however, the two statements diverge sharply on who was responsible and why.
Accord’s Account: A Police Officer Opens Fire
In a statement signed by its state chairman, Pastor Victor Akande, the Accord Party in Osun blamed the killings squarely on the Divisional Police Officer for Irewole Division, identified as Bamidele Olatona, alleging that he arrived at the garage and fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians without any prior disturbance at the park to justify it. The party insisted there was no takeover attempt or clash underway when the shooting started, describing the officer’s conduct as reckless and calling into question his fitness to carry a firearm.
Accord further alleged that this was not an isolated incident, pointing to what it described as a pattern of partisan conduct by the same officer during the lead-up to the August 15 election, including a claimed failure to arrest known perpetrators of pre-election violence and accusations that he provided cover for thugs aligned with political interests. The party has formally called on the Inspector-General of Police, the Osun State Commissioner of Police, and the Police Service Commission to arrest, psychologically evaluate, dismiss, and prosecute the officer.
APC’s Account: Sponsored Thugs and a Police Response
The Osun APC Media Cluster offered a markedly different version of events at a press briefing the same day. In its telling, armed thugs it described as aligned with the Accord Party stormed the garage in an attempt to forcibly take over the transport hub, killing commuters and travellers in the process before the Divisional Police Officer intervened in response to a distress call over the alleged abduction of an APC member. The party claimed officers were assaulted and had service rifles seized during the confrontation, naming three individuals it described as field commanders of the operation, one going by the alias Soskid and two others identified as T. Banson and Ayewo.
APC went further, alleging that the violence was coordinated and sponsored by Senator Lere Oyewumi, Director-General of Governor Adeleke’s re-election campaign, and linking the incident to the unresolved 2025 killing of former Irewole council chairman Remi Abass, a case in which the party claims Accord chieftain Jide Jooda has repeatedly been named a suspect without ever facing prosecution. The party called on the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, along with zonal and state police commanders, to deploy security forces to Ikire, recover the missing weapons, and prosecute all those it named, including Senator Oyewumi.
Unverified Claims on Both Sides
It is worth stressing that neither account has, as of this report, been independently verified by security agencies or by AfrikTimes. Accord’s allegations against the DPO and APC’s allegations against named individuals and a sitting senator remain, for now, accusations made in competing press statements rather than established findings. Both parties have named specific individuals in connection with serious crimes including murder, and both are demanding arrests, but no arrests or formal charges tied to Monday’s shooting had been confirmed at the time of writing.
Why This Matters
The dueling narratives out of Ikire land in an already combustible political environment in Osun, barely a week after Adeleke’s re-election and amid separate, ongoing disputes between the two parties over control of local government secretariats and allegations of planned unrest at council premises and motor parks. With both sides now demanding federal police intervention while blaming each other for the bloodshed, the credibility of whatever investigation follows may hinge on whether it is seen as independent of either party’s political interests.
