1 dead as NURTW members, tricycle operators clash again
Hostilities continued yesterday between members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and commercial tricycle operators, widely known as keke Marwa at the Kola bus stop area of Alagbado, Lagos, resulting in the death of one person, while many others were injured.
Three persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the crisis which started at the weekend
The two bodies engaged one another in a free-forall at the weekend over a resolve by the tricycle riders at the Abule Egba area of the state to break away from the NURTW, an action the latter rebuffed.
When it started at the weekend, two persons were killed and five others injured. By 9am yesterday, the warring members reengaged one another in a bloody fight that would have escalated without the quick intervention of the police and the military who stormed the scene.
An affected witness, Wasiu Adigun, said: “I am a member of the Keke Marwa union. We have been suffering in the hands of the NURTW members who have been imposing all sorts of levies on us. We said they can’t be controlling us, so we decided to pull out from them and be independent. Since we made that threat, the NURTW members have not left us alone. On Saturday, they attacked us... Today again, they started attacking us and we resisted them.”
But a member of the NURTW, Obey Samson, retorted: “It was a blatant lie to say that we are fighting keke Marwa operators because they want to pull out from us. They started the fight just to create confusion to enable them pull out. For today’s attack, they started a reprisal attack. They claimed that we killed some of their members. They waylaid us and started shooting at us.”
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Dolapo Badmos, said one person was killed during the fight and three persons arrested in connection with the fight and the killing. Badmos added that the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, with some other top officers, had visited the scene.