BREAKING: Dangote Cement truck drivers, soldiers attack Ibese ; 2 hospitalised

Ibese is currently on lockdown following a skirmish that has now escalated to medium-scale violence involving the youth (mostly Okada riders) of the quarry community hosting Dangote Cement, Ibese Plant, and the drivers of the company’s trucks.

According to a community leader who spoke to the National Daily, yesterday, a Hausa trucker accidentally hit one of the riders who usually wait for passengers at the Ibese Junction en route to Abule Imashayi and neighboring villages.

The plant has two wide expanses of land where hundreds of cement truckers park, and their moving in and out of the parks obstruct traffic, especially at junctions in the area.

“The riders protested, but the truckers mobilized, and there was a fight,” he told the newspaper (in Yoruba) about the August 3 incident.

The situation then degenerated.

An Ibese Dangote Cement truck

“We moved in and pulled our youth back to Ibese so we could douse the tension.”

The community went and reported to the security agents, mostly soldiers, guarding the plant, hoping they could use their initiatives to de-escalate the situation.

“We were surprised the soldiers encouraged the Hausa truckers to keep up the attack,” he said.

“In fact the soldiers later came into Ibese and started attacking the youth, house by house.”

He said Odede Najim and Mulero Suleiman, brutalised, have landed in hospital thanks to the soldiers joining the truckers in the attack.

“We don’t know if the two will survive it.”

The source said it has been happening like that—soldiers ramping up company-community hostilities they ought to professionally de-escalate.

The police have yet to intervene either.

And the community, whose oba died last year, had to take a traditional route — something they fall back on in times like this.

Oro, a supposed procession of ancestral spirits they invoke to tackle insecurity, is out now.

All residents, especially women and children, are to keep their heads down in their houses, another resident confirmed.

And it is very likely the youth will soon lunch their own attack on the cement plant that has been operating for close to 12 years in the Yewa North community.

“We can’t tell what the youth are planning,” he said.

But Sunday Esan, the media relations officer of Dangote Group headquartered in Lagos, said the those who spoke were only trying to smear te company’s image.

According to him, the fracas had nothing to do with the company truckers and the commercial motorcycle riders; it was about the riders union and its members fightig over ticketing.