Buses vandalised as butchers, Oyo task force clash

TWO buses of the Pacesetter Transport Services in Oyo State were vandalised, on Friday, as butchers at Gbagi market, Ibadan, clashed with officials of the Oyo State Joint task force who were out to enforce the relocation of butchers to the Ibadan Central abbatoir, located at Amosun, Akinyele local government area of the state.

The task force comprising officers of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), staffers of the state Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development, among others, had arrested some butchers for flouting the relocation order only for hell to be let loose when other butchers saw that their members were being taken away in government’s buses.

To resist the arrest of their members, the butchers pelted the buses and its drivers, shattered the side windows and dragged the steering wheel with the bus drivers compelling that the buses be opened.

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With the ensuing violence and butchers’ insistence on the release of their members, the task force was compelled to release the arrested butchers so as to leave the volatile scene alive.

Speaking on the development, Executive Secretary, Oyo Bureau of Investment Promotion and Public Private Partnership, Mr Yinka Fatoki said the culprits had been identified and will be prosecuted.

He decried the butchers’ attack on the state government’s task force as impunity, pointing out that the government may be forced to increase the number of personnel in the task force to go all out against erring butchers.

“The attack shows the level of impunity and level of desperation of some of these erring butchers. Apart from the fact that buses were vandalised, some of the officers of the NSCDC and bus drivers were assaulted.

“The culprits have been identified and they will be prosecuted. Government needs to make examples of them to serve as deterrent to others.

“The scale of the operations of the enforcement taskforce has been mellowed down because of the increasing level of compliance but we may be forced to increase the number of people in the task force,” Fatoki said.

Meanwhile, two butchers were arraigned at a state mobile sitting held in Ibadan, on three counts charge of slaughtering cows in an unauthorised location, operating without butcher’s license and selling meat without government approval.

The prosecutor, Mrs Olamide Tella, had told the court that the enforcement task force of the state government arrested the defendants, Abiola and Akinsola on October 2 and 18 respectively.

Those arraigned, Yekeen Abiola and Moroof Akinsola, however pleaded not guilty before the, sitting presided over by Chief Magistrate, Risikat Ebeloku-Mustapha.

Ebeloku-Mustapha granted the defendants bail of different terms, while asking them to appear for hearing on November 2.

Ebeloku-Mustapha granted Abiola and Akinsola bail with two sureties in the like sum of N500,000 and N200,000 respectively.
She stated that one of the sureties must be an executive member of their respective associations and the other gainfully employed with valid means of identification.

S-Davies Wande