1 person dead, 2 police officers hospitalized after clash with OPC members

When OPC members were demonstrating in the Ojota neighborhood of Lagos, the police used tear gas to disperse them.

On January 9, 2023, a fight between members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) resulted in at least one confirmed death.

According to reports, the altercation started when police officers used tear gas canisters to scatter a group of Yoruba nation protesters gathered near Gani Fawehinmi Park in the Ojota neighborhood of Lagos.

The protestors were peacefully protesting when a policewoman gave the order to disperse them, according to a tricycle driver who would not give his name out for fear of being detained by armed police officers who were patrolling the area.

He said: “I noticed the woman receive a call; she was a member of the police squad that was mobilized to the location, but she was not wearing a uniform. As soon as she finished taking the call, she ordered the demonstrators to disperse, and they then started shooting them.

“When the protesters’ bodies prevented the bullets from penetrating them, the policeman launched tear gas canisters. To prevent the tear gas from harming them, the demonstrators rubbed kerosene in their eyes. When they began shooting and firing tear gas, there was pandemonium, and many of us fled.

“The officers were injured by the demonstrators; I’m not sure if they died or not, but I witnessed them being carried away from the site. Additionally, a car was burned.

The Lagos Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Benjamin Hundeyin, disproved the assertion that the protest was peaceful by claiming that the agitators interfered with social and commercial activity in the state’s Ojota region and that their gathering was illegal.

According to Hundeyin, the protesters fired and killed one individual while being dispersed after injuring two police officers.

While stressing that the matter was still under investigation, the police spokeswoman revealed that four individuals had been detained.