Police fired tear gas at Ilorin residents, including a hospital, on Thursday during the protest against the increase in pump price of fuel across the country, FIJ has learnt.

FIJ had reported how passengers were stranded around Sango, Fate and Maraba areas of the capital city of Kwara State Thursday morning. This was because public transport drivers had ordered passengers out of their vehicles in protest against the increase in petrol pump price.

Sources told FIJ that these public transport disruption extended to other locations, such as Kwara Poly and Offa Garage, where tyres were burnt, and GSS Omolola.

READ MORE: VIDEO: Ilorin Motorists Abandon Passengers to Protest Petrol Price Hike

In one of the videos obtained by FIJ, a resident can be heard, saying, ‘If not because of this nonsense… Yeh! Yeh! Ehh! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! I’m dead o!” as shots rent the air. Residents can also seen taking to their heels amid the fired shots.

A resident, who does not want to be named, told FIJ that the police fired tear gas to disperse the protesting drivers around GSS area, and Omolola Specialist Hospital was affected in the process.

“They dropped tear gas inside Omolola although it did not last for more than 15 minutes. The police scared them and fired tear gas inside the hospital. An asthmatic patient fainted because of the tear gas,” the source revealed.

“It was mainly the taxi, keke napep and bike riders who are stopping people. They didn’t want them to move; they were saying people should trek since there was scarcity of fuel and the available one was expensive.

“They were not even protesters like that; they were just public transport workers stopping vehicles in solidarity that they could not work with the expensive fuel. They just wanted to show that if people could not work, the government would understand their pain.”

READ ALSO: Ilorin Like Prison: Young People’s Experiences at the Hands of Rogue Police Officers in Kwara

Another resident who asked not to be named said he also learnt that police fired tear gas in the Omolola area amid the protest by tricycle and bus drivers.

“When I was at Offa Garage, I saw some boys and police, trying to calm some things down at Olunlade area,” he said.

“I heard that keke napep and bus drivers were making people disembark from their vehicles, so that they won’t be able to board any vehicle. It’s because of the fuel situation. They cannot cope with it. Buying fuel for more than N1,000 per litre is not sustainable.

“My children’s teacher who teaches them at home called to say he would not be able to come because there was no vehicle. He said he was even trekking at the time he called me, and I had to tell him not to bother.”

Two other videos made available to FIJ capture the desperation of residents affected by the fuel hike and the resulting protests. A male resident expressed his frustration: “Scarcity of fuel is cause of this problem. There’s no road. How will I get home now?”

In a separate video, a female also laments, “You can’t go to Taiwo Oke. If you are coming from Taiwo Oke, you can’t pass. The road is blocked because of fuel. God help us. This one is beyond our power. We can’t take it anymore. If the world wants to end, it should end.”

When FIJ called Taiye Omojasola, the Medical Director of Omolola Specialist Hospital to confirm the tear gas incident, he said, “I was not at the hospital at that time. I have not been at work. So, it will not be fair for me to comment since I was not around at all.”

Efforts to contact Ejire-Adeyemi Toun, the state police public relations officer, were unsuccessful, as she neither answered her calls nor responded to the message sent to her.

Abimbola Abatta is a reporter with FIJ, writing reports in partnership with Report for the World which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.