Commercial activities were on Monday paralysed in some parts of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital when Secondary School Students of two public schools engaged in a violent fracas over the death of two of their colleagues.
Reports gathered by Vanguard reliably stated that the students were killed during an unofficial inter-schools gambling competition in Abeokuta.
The incident, which occurred in the mid-afternoon of yesterday, involved students of the Baptist Boys High School (BBHS), Saje, who invaded the Ilugun High School, Elega axis of the metropolis to avenge the death of their colleagues who were allegedly stabbed to death in the previous week.
It was gathered that the BBHS students, who were armed with guns, cutlasses, broken bottles and assorted charms among other dangerous weapons, invaded Ilugun High School and started shooting sporadically in every direction and chanted anti-management songs to warn the principal and teachers to stay off.
The development forced teachers and students of the school to run in different directions so as not to be caught up in the crisis, which later spread to adjourning streets of the metropolis.
Shop owners, who had earlier opened for businesses hurriedly closed down and scampered for safety, while vehicles and commuters also deserted the area for fear of being affected by the incident.
One of the shop owners in the area, who managed to return after security operatives had taken over, told newsmen that students of the two schools were last week, involved in gambling of which those of the BBHS won massively at the expense of their colleagues in Ilugun High School.
The gambling, however, degenerated into a conflict, wherein “two BBHS students were stabbed with broken bottles”.
“One of the BBHS students stabbed died last Friday, while the second one died on Sunday. But the students of BBHS were not happy about the incident and that was why they came out in violent protest against students of Ilugun High School today”.
When contacted, the State’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Abimbola Oyeyemi confirmed the incident, saying that the command has deployed security operatives to the area to restore sanity.