A casual worker at a manufacturing company in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, has tragically passed away amid protests by employees demanding salary increments.
The incident occurred on Monday, as casual workers staged a protest due to the company’s refusal to provide them with palliatives and failure to increase wages. They claimed that despite a federal directive last year for private sector companies to provide palliatives to their workers, the company did not comply.
The company’s management reportedly called in security agents to quell the protest, which resulted in a clash with the protesting workers. During the confrontation, one staff member was allegedly shot and subsequently died, while several others sustained injuries of varying severity.
The Public Relations Officer of the Oyo State Police Command, Adewale Osifeso, confirmed the incident on Tuesday. He mentioned that arrests have been made in connection with the incident and that the Commissioner of Police has ordered the Homicide Department of the Criminal Investigation Department to oversee the investigation.
According to Osifeso, preliminary investigations indicated that the protest was based on misinformation spread among the workers regarding the distribution of palliatives to private companies nationwide. He stated that criminal elements infiltrated the protest, causing violence that led to the destruction of vehicles and property valued at millions of naira.
Twelve suspects have been arrested so far in connection with the violent protest, and measures have been taken to restore normalcy in the affected area, including the deployment of the police’s operational and tactical resources to prevent further incidents.
