A former Chairman of the Oyo State chapter of the National Cumulation of Road Transport Workers, Lateef Akinsola, popularly called Tokyo, on Saturday eluded being lynched by suspected thugs in Agbeni area of Ibadan.
Akinsola had visited the home of the Chief Imam of Ibadanland, Sheikh Haruna Suara, with some of his adherents when he was assailed.
The former NURTW chairman, who was taken away from the scene in an Armoured Personnel Carrier belonging to the Oyo State Police Command, verbally expressed his assailants were after his life and the lives of his adherents, integrating that he was fortuitous to have eluded.
“I was at the Chief Imam of Ibadan’s residence to accolade his invitation with some of my adherents when they endeavored to kill me. My adherents were assailed while I was with the Imam in his house at Agbeni area of Ibadan.
“Thank God that my adherents were outside when I was inside with the Imam, maybe I would have been dead by now,” Akinsola verbalized.
Bashiru Saheed, Agboola Rasak, Liadi Akande, Rilwan Akinsola and Alani Adaramola were some of Akinsola’s adherents who sustained injuries in the assailment.
An eyewitness who did not give his designation verbalized more than 20 suspected thugs carried out the assailment, alleging that they were loyalists of the present Chairman of the NURTW in the state, Taofeek Oyerinde.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Olabisi Ilobanafor, who corroborated the incident, verbalized that the state police command responded to the call for re-inforcement by Mapo Police Station.
She verbalized, “The command despatched a amalgamated police team and an Armed Personnel Carrier to the scene of the assailment to quell the violence and rescue Akinsola. We are yet to make any apprehend because the place was very rambunctious and we have to stop that first and later make apprehends predicated on identification by the witness.
“We have advised those injured to go for treatment and later come back to avail us in our investigations to apprehend the culprits. We will get them and make them face the full wrath of the law to accommodate as a deterrent to others in the act.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the coalescence in the state, Oyerinde, has gainsaid the allegation against his loyalists by eyewitnesses, verbalizing that those fingered in the assailment were at a religious function at the time of the assailment.
He verbalized, “We have met Alhaji Tokyo on several occasions and we have never assailed him. We are not a truculent coalescence again. We will perpetuate to maintain the placidity in the state. Those people mentioned in connection with the assailment were at the NTA Ibadan Second Ramadan Lecture of the tardy Alhaji Abdul-Azeez Arisekola-Alao when the incident transpired. The police should conduct investigation and get the video clip of the programme to ascertain my claim,” Oyerinde verbalized.