A suspected ‘Yahoo boy’, Olorunfemi Tope, 35, was reportedly lynched by a mob for allegedly crushing two persons to death in Ijoka area of Akure, the Ondo State Capital.
Tope was driving a Toyota car along the road when he suddenly skidded off his lane and rammed into people who rode on commercial motorcycles also known as Okada.
Witnesses said sympathisers who rushed to rescue the driver, allegedly found some fetish items inside the vehicle and raised their suspension that the driver was into ritual otherwise known as ‘yahoo plus’.
Riled by the fetish items allegedly found inside the car, the sympathisers descended on the driver and beat him to a coma. Some persons were looking for tyres to set the driver and his car ablaze when policemen arrived and rescued him half dead.
The mob also assaulted parents of the lynched driver who raced to the scene when they heard their son was being beaten.
Ondo policeman spokesman, SP Funmilayo Odunlami Omisanya, said the suspect was already dead by the time the police got to the scene.
Omisanya said she could not confirm if fetish items were found as alleged because the vehicle was set ablaze. She said two persons, Tope and a bike rider, died while six others were rushed to the hospital.
She said,
“The young man died. He was not beaten to coma. He was killed and his vehicle set ablaze. Talks about fetish items are stories. There was no how our men could make any arrest in that situation.”
Omisanya confirmed the mob attacked Tope’s parents who were saved from being lynched by police intervention.