NURTW leader shot dead by Police, members storm highway in protest

National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) members were on Saturday, May 30, on rampage in Kwara to protest the killing of their leader who was allegedly shot dead by the police.

The union members in Ajase, Irepodun Local Government Area of the State blocked the highway, refusing any vehicular passage.

The pandemonium broke out after the Union leader, Akeem Laduba, was supposedly shot dead by a police patrol team.

Laduba, who was the Chairman of Ajase-Omu-Aran-Kabba unit of NURTW was said to have been killed along Igbaja-Ajase-Ipo Express Way, Kwara.

An eye witness told NAN, anonymously, that the deceased was trying to intervene in a brawl between the police team and a commercial motorcyclist.

According to the source, Laduba was on his way to Offa, a nearby community, when he stumbled on a police patrol beating up a commercial motorcyclist in the early hours of Saturday.

The source alleged that it was in the process of the deceased trying to intervene in the matter that he was attacked by the policemen who had queried the rationale behind his intervention.

According to the source, the victim became unconscious after he was hit by the bullet and was immediately rushed to a nearby private hospital by the police team where he later died.

"Although, I don’t know what the offence of the commercial motorcyclist was, but he was being beaten when the man (deceased) tried to save him.

"And in that process, one of the policemen attacked him, the man retaliated and then the policemen fired a shot,” the source said.

Following Laduba's death, NAN reports that some members of the union stormed and blocked the highway while chanting war songs.

Vehicles going to the neighbouring Kwara towns such as Oke-Onigbin, Omu-Aran, Offa and other states - Otun in Ekiti and Osogbo in Osun were denied passage by the rampaging union members.

It was reported that the members have since left the highway but vehicles passing the route were forced to carry leaves on them in sympathy for the deceased.

The Kwara State Police Public Relation Officer, Ajayi Okasanmi, while confirming the incident to NAN, said that the shot fired "was not intentional”.

"It is true a shot was fired by a policeman, but it was not intentional.

"It was even the police that took the man to the hospital but unfortunately he died later,” he said.

However, it is believed that the Union members will not look the other way over the killing. Sources say they are likely to cause major unrest in the town in the coming days