There was panic in Osogbo, capital of Osun State on Sunday when some suspected thugs invaded a site and clashed over the group that would extort a man who just purchased a landed property.
The rival thugs from two different groups besieged the popular Gbaemu junction in Osogbo where the old house that the developer purchased is located and asked the landowner to give them some amount of money before he could be allowed to start his project on the site.
While a group of the thugs was reportedly harassing the yet to be identified landowner and his labourers in a bid to extort him before they could be allowed to work on the site, another group of suspected hoodlums stormed the area and demanded that the developer should give them money.
The attempted double extortion became riotous as the rival groups engaged in hot altercations and competed for recognition from the developer.
The confusion degenerated into a fight among the miscreants who freely wielded dangerous weapons such as guns, daggers, cutlasses and clubs.
With the scary development, The Point gathered that residents, passersby and motorists around Gbaemu, Station Road and Popo, were thrown into fear as the hooligans attacked one another amid gunshots.
But for the timely intervention of men and officers of the Anti-Cultism Unit of the Osun State Police Command, the clash would have been deadly.
After dispersing the hoodlums, the heavily armed policemen stationed their vehicles around the areas.
Speaking in an interview, a witness who identified himself as Kehinde, said, “It was around 8:00am when some thugs from Egbatedo area and those who are Emir Boys started attacking themselves. They were shooting in the air to scare themselves and that was the time I ran inside my house. I came out after I heard that policemen have chased them away.”
When contacted on the telephone, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Yemisi Opalola did not respond to the call.
