Parts of Abuja, the nation’s capital, were thrown into chaos on Tuesday when two factions of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) clashed in the Garki area of the Federal Capital.
Gunshots were reported during the conflict, which heightened the tension in the area on Sapele Crescent, off Ladoke Akintola Boulevard in Garki II.
The exact number of casualties, if any, could not be confirmed at the time of filing this report.
“Therefore, supporters of the current president mobilized themselves in an effort to forcibly remove Agbede and his group.
“However, they were met by a police blockade which resulted in a violent confrontation. Shots were fired, intensifying the gravity of the crisis,” an eyewitness disclosed to Hobnob News .
It was gathered that before the NURTW clash in Abuja that Baruwa had been seeking intervention from the police and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to resolve the situation, without success.
We shall henceforth not hesitate to defend our mandate with the last drop of our blood,” Baruwa had earlier vowed, accusing former NURTW leaders of illegally occupying the National Secretariat of the union.
He accused the former president of the NURTW, Alhaji Najeem Usman Yasin, and Agbede, the former National Vice President, of holding illegal meetings with selected past leaders of the union for precpitating the clash in Abuja.
In a further development, Baruwa alleged that the police seemed to favour the Lagos Park Management Committee.
Therefore, he called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Olukayode Egbetokun and Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi, to intervene in the matter.
He stressed that only a court of competent jurisdiction can invalidate their mandate, and encouraged aggrieved members to follow due process and seek legal redress, warning that anything short of this could lead to anarchy.
