Osogbo residents loot food warehouse amid gunshots
By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo
Residents of Osogbo, the Osun State capital, on Tuesday reportedly defied heavy rainfall and police gunshots to loot a warehouse linked to an alleged food investment scheme in the city.
Vanguard had reported that several residents who invested in the scheme operated by Global Food Initiative had been unable to access their investments after the operators reportedly failed to open their office on Monday morning.
The development prompted investors to besiege the company’s office in an attempt to recover their food supplies.
Some of the investors returned to the office and warehouse as early as 8am on Tuesday, hoping to meet the operators, but met operatives of the Amotekun Corps deployed to maintain law and order.
The aggrieved investors reportedly remained at the premises until about 4pm, when Amotekun personnel left the area.
As heavy rain began in the evening, some hoodlums allegedly broke into the warehouse and opened the doors, allowing other people to enter and remove food items.
Residents from Egbetedo, Odi-Olowo, Fagbewesa, Asubiaro and other nearby communities reportedly rushed to the warehouse, with some carrying away 50kg bags of rice, 50-litre containers of vegetable oil, spaghetti, semovita, beverages and other food items.
The arrival of police operatives at the scene reportedly failed to immediately stop the looting, as officers fired shots into the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd.
Instead, more people were said to have joined the rush to remove items from the warehouse.
A female investor, identified simply as Nike, who was seen carrying a 50-litre container of vegetable oil, said she had invested more than N300,000 in the scheme.
She said she was trying to recover part of her investment through the food items.
“I can only struggle to pick this. Some hoodlums who never invested in the scheme were stealing bags of rice as well as vegetable oil, and I can’t just watch my money disappear like that,” she said.
Meanwhile, some hoodlums allegedly took advantage of the situation to steal from investors who managed to remove items from the warehouse.
The hoodlums reportedly threatened some investors with axes and cutlasses and forced them to surrender items they had carried away.
The police intervention was said to have prevented the situation from escalating into a wider crisis, even as the warehouse was eventually emptied of its contents.
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