It was pandemonium at Apata, Ibadan for several hours on Wednesday morning when commercial motorcycle operators popularly called okada riders clashed with the policemen in the area following what the okada operators tagged the highhandedness of the security operatives in the locality.
At the end of the day, no fewer than seven policemen and two okada operators sustained varied degrees of injuries and they were rushed to nearby hospitals for medical attention.
But at the Police Station located at Kuola, Apata, five vehicles and seven motorcycles were torched by the aggrieved okada riders.
Eyewitness accounts say that the crisis which lasted over three hours ensued when a policemen made frantic efforts to arrest an okada rider for allegedly carrying two passengers on his motor cycle.
Sources alleged that the policeman hit the okada operator with a piece of wood and eventually effected his arrest when he fell down, a development which met with the anger of other okada operators in the vicinity.
Shortly after, about 45 riders mobilized themselves and stormed the nearby Kuola Police station where the arrested okada man was taken, demanding their colleague. Initially, the invaders were said to be hauling stones and other objects at the police station, until they finally set the station ablaze.
As the attack got out of hand, a reinforcement of ten police Hilux vans loaded with armed policemen and soldiers and one armoured personnel carrier, were dispatched to Apata to quell the disturbance.
The Police team eventually arrested 30 okada riders and took them to the Oyo State Criminal Investigation Department for interrogation.
While the crisis lasted, newsmen were barred from taking photographs while a photo journalist who had taken some pictures was forced by the police to delete it saying he was acting on the orders of the Commissioner of police, Mbu Joseph Mbu.
Reacting to the incident, the Acting Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) for the state command, DSP Ayodele Lanade insisted that nobody died in the incident just as he explained that policemen were only trying to rescue an okada rider who fell down, an action he said was probably misunderstood by the other okada riders who reacted violently.
The PPRO told journalists that a total of 48 okada riders have so far been arrested in connection with the matter.
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Oyo: Okada riders, policemen clash in Ibadan