Osun College shut over protests

The Osun State College of Education, Ila-Orangun was shut on Thursday, following a violent protest by students of the institution.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the college authorities ordered the closure of the college to stem the wave of protests which began in the early hours of Tuesday.

The students were said to be protesting over what they called the avoidable death of two of their colleagues in a motorcycle crash on Monday night.

The dead students were said to be riding on a commercial motorcycle when the motorcycle ran into a heap of gravel meant for road construction by the Local Government Council.

The students argued that the accident occurred as a result of the negligence on the part of the government and its agents.

One of the students, Mr Taiwo Adeleke, said that power outage in the town in the past three weeks was responsible for the accident.

’’ The entire town has been in darkness for over three weeks and the council officials then went ahead to put gravel on the road where there is no street light, which caused the crash.

“The Federal Road Safety Commission that is supposed to checkmate them are busy collecting money from the motorists at the expense of people’s lives,’’ he said.

Another student, who pleaded anonymity, also blamed the council for the incident, calling for immediate intervention by the State Government.

‘’The council is not sensitive at all and the executive secretary of the council does not seem to know his onions; how can you endanger people’s lives in the name of construction?

‘’The council was not bothered about the total darkness in the town, the FRSC is not doing its work and this eventually turned the road town to a  death trap.

‘’The State Government must do something as a matter of urgency to address these issues to prevent re-occurrence of such ugly events in the future,’’ he stated.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that one of the students died on the spot while the other died on the way to the hospital.

Meanwhile, all efforts to speak with the Executive Secretary of the Council, Mr Segun Awotunde, proved abortive as the ouncilc was deserted while he could not be reached on his mobile phone.