The Spokesperson of the command, SP Yemisi Opalola, who gave the confirmation, said that the victims were on motorcycles on their way to their farms when they were ambushed by the bandits and killed.
The Osun State Police Command on Friday, confirmed the killing of five persons by unknown gunmen suspected to be bandits when they attacked the Yoruba ancestral town, Ile-Ife, in the state.
The Spokesperson of the command, SP Yemisi Opalola, who gave the confirmation, said that the victims were on motorcycles on their way to their farms when they were ambushed by the bandits and killed.
The police spokesperson noted that consequently, the state Commissioner of Police, Olawale Olokode, had deployed a police tactical team and officers to forestall breakdown of law and order in the area.
She also added that investigation had commenced on the circumstance behind the killing, assuring that perpetrators of the heinous crime would be brought to justice.
Opalola said that the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi had also waded into the matter by appealing to his subjects to maintain peace, as a way of preventing the situation from escalating.
The News Agency of Nigeria learnt that the farmers were ambushed and killed while passing through a town in Ile-Ife to their farm.
The killings, however, generated tension in Ile-Ife owing to fear of a reprisal attack from the people of Modakeke, a neighbouring town, thus resulting in many Ile-Ife residents hurriedly closing their businesses.
Ile-Ife and Modakeke communities have a long history of communal clashes, which had led to loss of many lives and destruction of property.