By AfrikTimes | Osogbo
The Osun State Police Command says it has moved swiftly against the men behind Monday’s unrest at Osogbo’s motor parks, releasing a rundown of arrests at a Tuesday press briefing even as questions grow online over whether the crackdown is reaching everyone it should.
What triggered the chaos
According to the state’s commissioner of police, Ibrahim Gotan, trouble began on July 20 when a faction of the National Union of Road Transport Workers staged a protest after being blocked from entering a garage by a rival faction, a standoff that escalated into a clash between the two groups before police stepped in to restore calm.
Hours later, around 5:30pm the same day, officers received a distress call reporting armed men shooting sporadically in Osogbo’s Oke-Ijetu area. A team from the Command’s Anti-Robbery and Violent Crime Response Unit responded and came under fire from a group police say is linked to one Wakili Alowonle, leaving three officers with varying degrees of gunshot injury; all are said to be receiving hospital treatment.
One suspect, 40-year-old Adedeji Saheed Opeyemi, was arrested at the scene. Police say he told investigators he’d been summoned to Oke-Ijetu by an associate identified as Sibi, who was acting on instructions from Alowonle and supplied him with one of two pump-action guns brought to the location. Items recovered from the operation include six spent cartridges, four vehicles, four motorcycles, military camouflage clothing, and items police described as charms. Opeyemi is now assisting investigators as police work to trace others still at large.
Two other cases
The briefing also covered a motorcycle theft case where a Bajaj motorcycle snatched from its rider in Osogbo’s Osunjela area on July 19 was traced to Modakeke within hours, leading to the arrest of two suspects who are Kamarudeen Babatunde and Lekan Usman, along with a receiver, Moses Oyebade of Ondo State, who allegedly took possession of the stolen bike.
Separately, police said two men, Alawode Ridwan and Ajibade Ahmed, were arrested on July 16 over an incident of disorderly conduct in Osogbo’s Amadia area. All suspects named in the briefing are expected to be arraigned once investigations conclude.
Online, a different reading of events
Not everyone following the story is convinced the police account tells the whole picture. Some netizens argued that the individuals they believed actually stormed the Osogbo garages and disrupted public order have been left out of the police’s account entirely, while questioning where the Command’s description of a “faction of NURTW” came from, noting that NURTW national president MC Oluomo has publicly recognised Asiri Eniba as the union’s substantive chairman in Abuja.
The broader complaints were about consistency, arguing that a credible investigation should pursue everyone responsible for the violence regardless of standing, rather than one that appears to concentrate on certain individuals while sidestepping others already. These events reflect a broader current of public skepticism toward the Command’s handling of the garage disputes.
Earlier Report
AfrikTimes earlier reported on the account of eyewitnesses that a different picture had already been circulating from the ground before the police briefing was ever issued.
Rather than a broad-based coalition of aggrieved transport workers and civil society voices, these accounts describe Monday’s demonstrators as predominantly union members aligned with the APC, moving through Osogbo with what witnesses say was an active police escort, visible, according to these accounts, in photos and video clips shared from the scene. Among those named in connection with the protest is Alhaji Comrade Kazeem Oyewale, identified as a factional NURTW leader in Osogbo and an APC stakeholder in the state.
These same accounts allege that gunfire broke out at Aregbe Park during the demonstration, sending nearby shop owners fleeing in panic. Taken together, the picture painted by these witnesses is starkly different from the official framing of a peaceful protest: what was presented publicly, they argue, was in practice a coordinated push by APC-aligned transport workers to take control of motor parks across Osogbo, rather than a straightforward outpouring of grief or a call for justice. Calm was only restored, according to this account, once the Police Mobile Force and Nigerian Army personnel were deployed to the affected areas.
