27th July, 2011
Business activities were this morning paralysed in Ijebu-Ode as students of Tai Solarin University of Education, TASUED, trooped to the streets in their thousands to protest the killing of their yet-to-be identified colleague.
Mobile policemen were later drafted to the scene to intervene thus preventing the crisis from escalating.
P.M.NEWS gathered that some policemen at the popular Lagos Motor Park, Ijebu-Ode were overpowered by the protesting students. The policemen called for reinforcement before they could douse the tension.
The ever-busy motor park was deserted as policemen were shooting into the air to scare the protesting students. Commuters and drivers fled the motor park for safety.
P.M.NEWS findings revealed that the crisis arose when an unidentified female student was killed by a cult group, Eiye Confraternity.
The late female student also known as ‘Big Mama’, was believed to be the leader of the Red Rose Ladies, a female cult group on campus. She allegedly slapped a member of Eiye cult last week.
In retaliation, the Eiye cult boys slapped two members of the Red Rose Ladies who were also stripped. Their nude pictures were posted on the Facebook. This angered their members and they engaged the support of Eiye cult group.
The cultists started shooting in different locations around Ijebu-Ode since yesterday. The Red Rose member was killed in one of the shooting spree, our correspondent gathered.
When P.M.NEWS contacted the Public Relations Officer, PRO, of TASUED, Barrister Gbenga Omilola on phone this morning, he declined knowledge of any crisis on campus.
“I left campus by 5 p.m. yesterday. There was no crisis or report of the killing of any student. When I move around today, I will be able to know what has transpired,†the TASUED image maker said.
As at the time of filing this report, when our correspondent visited the Adefisan/Latoogun Junction, along Ejirin road, Ijebu-Ode, students numbering up to 1,000 stood poles apart while policemen were deployed to the scene to stop the protest.
Meanwhile, Hundreds of students protesting a hike in their school fees, this morning, set the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, near Owerri, in Imo State, southeast Nigeria, on fire.
In the confusion, a student was shot in the head and rushed to the hospital.
What began as a peaceful protest turned violent as the rampaging students began to make bonfires and overpowered campus security guards before setting fire to their office. Some academic and administrative buildings were also torched by the rioters who uprooted the school’s gate and barricaded the entrance to the campus, which lies on the outskirts of the state capital, Owerri. Gun-totting policemen arrived moments later to calm the situation, but the students were unrelenting in their protest. A resident near the school premises, Ujunwakelechi Okere, told P.M.NEWS the protesters, in their hundreds, carried planks and threw pebbles at security men who tried to challenge them.
The students embarked on the demonstration over a fine ordered by the institution’s authorities for those who delayed in the payment of their school fees.
Defaulting students are being compelled to pay a five percent increment as penalty for the late payment, before they could be allowed to sit for their semester examinations holding soon.
But the students, who were still smarting from the hike in their school fees, earlier in January this year, rejected the new fine as “exploitative.
—Biodun Onafuye/Ijebu-Ode & Tokunbo Olajide