Soldiers invaded the Lagos Garage, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State this morning, injuring several people and vandalizing about 20 vehicles.

They allegedly shot sporadically into the air, assaulting passengers and transport officials in the motor park with machete.

Speaking with Punch newspaper, one of the transport union officials in the park, Rotimi Okunowo, who witnessed the incident said it was refusal of a soldier to pay his transport fare that led to the fracas.

A soldier who was said to be in mufti was asked by the bus conductor, Ademola Dosunmu, to produce his identity but he refused.

“What happened was that one of the soldiers, who was in a mufti came to the park around 6.30am and when he got to the garage,he claimed he is a staff and will not pay. When asked to identified himself,he engaged one of the boys in fracas and within a jiffy,he left the scene,only to return with about 20 men with various dangerous weapons like cutlasses,guns,and broken bottles. They beat the boy, Ademola Dosunmu and macheted him and took him away. As that was not enough for them,they vandalised many vehicles parked in the garage and pursued many people into many streets in the town.

“The government should help us to caution these people. You need to see how they beat Ademola blue black and macheted him in many places.

“We are appealing to the government to save us from these soldiers. What we gathered was that they are those assigned to be monitoring the pipelines across the area.

“We cannot bear this again, it is too much for us. They come on daily basis to extort us and yet will come back later in the day to beat our boys up.” he said.