Students of UNIPORT during a protest against the killings of four of their colleagues in Port Harcourt ... on Tuesday, October 9, 2012.
| credits: NAN.
Angry students of the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Tuesday invaded Aluu community where four of their colleagues were killed on Friday.
By the time security operatives restored order to the troubled community, many houses and cars had been torched and about 30 students injured.
But the students’ action came with a cost: The UNIPORT authorities shut the 37-year-old institution indefinitely.
While the community boiled, the National Assembly condemned the UNIPORT and Mubi Polytechnic killings. The House of Representatives went a step further by summoning the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, over the rising insecurity in the country.
Four second year undergraduates of UNIPORT – Biringa Lordson of Theatre Arts Department; Ugonna Obuzor of the Geology Department; Mike Toku of Civil Engineering Department; and Tekema Erikena -were lynched in Aluu for allegedly stealing a laptop computer and BlackBerry phone. The lynching was also videotaped.
Last week, gunmen had also invaded the off campus hostel of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi with a hit list and butchered more than 40 students.
A source in Choba told our our correspondent in Rivers State that irate students who gathered under the auspices of the National Association of Nigerian Students had barricaded the East-West Road, vowing not to leave until the UNIPORT Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ajienka, addressed them.
Some the students later moved to Aluu and began to set houses and cars ablaze until security operatives came to disperse them.
The immediate past student union president, Mr. Rhino Owhorkire, said that 30 students were injured during the incident that took place at about 4.30 pm.
Owhokire, who hails from Aluu, stated that he tried to calm the students and stop them from going ahead to torch the buildings to no avail.
“I am from Aluu and I tried my best to calm them down and stop them from burning houses . The initial plan was for them to make bonfire on the road and not to burn houses,” he said.
NANS Treasurer, South East and South-South, Mr. Iyere Onono, urged government to address the grievances of the students.
As the tension rose, the management of the university ordered the immediate closure of the university to forestall the breakdown of law and order on the campus.
Its Public Relations Officer, Dr. Williams Wodi, who spoke with The PUNCH on the telephone, said, “The University of Port Harcourt has been shut down indefinitely and students have been told to vacate their hostels until normalcy returns to the institution. We will reopen when normalcy returns.”
Reps summon IG
In Abuja, the House of Representatives ordered the Inspector-General of Police, to appear before its Committee on Police Affairs to explain what he had done so far to contain the wave of violent crimes in the country.
The resolution followed a motion of urgent national importance moved by the member representing Mubi-North/South/Maiha Federal Constituency of Adamawa State, Mr. Abubakar Wambai.
Wambai complained that up till Tuesday (yesterday), the killers of the polytechnic students had not been identified.
Besides summoning the IG, the House directed its Committee on Police Affairs to visit Mubi and assess the situation.
The Chairman, House Committee on Electoral Matters, Mr. Jerry Manwe, recalled that Mubi used to be a peaceful town where commercial activities flourished.
“Let us set up a committee to visit Mubi so that we can have a report on what really happened,” he stated.
Mark canvasses state police
At the Senate, Mark expressed his support for the creation of state police in the face of what he described as the “perceived failure of the Police to stem insecurity in the country.
Mark’s comments came during the debate of a motion brought by Senator Ayogu Eze and 98 other senators on the Aluu killings.
He said, “We are worried that this has happened, and it is a test case for the police because the video is there for them to identify the perpetrators and they should quickly bring them to book.
“I was against state police before, but I have since changed my mind. The frequency with which crimes happen in this country and the difficulty the current police have in carrying out their investigations means that there are real security challenges that we need to address. And to address them, we must make sure that there are enough policemen that can police this country. The benefits of state police outweigh its disadvantages at the moment.”
Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi said the Aluu killing was an expression of an angry nation that was becoming disconnected from humanity, as a result of accumulated years of disappointment and neglect by government.
Ekweremadu, who said he knew one of the victims’ parents, added that the country should not be allowed to continue on the path of bloodshed.
Leader of the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, described the killing as an “act of squandering the future of the country.”
NANS ultimatum
Meanwhile, NANS on Tuesday issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Federal and Rivers State governments to apprehend and punish the perpetrators of the killing of the four UNIPORT students.
Describing the killing as “inhumane, barbaric and uncalled for,” NANS said if the Federal and Rivers State governments failed to meet its demand by the expiration of the ultimatum, its members would have no other option than to use their “constitutional powers.”
NANS National Public Relations Officer, Clement Olusegun, said in a statement in Abeokuta, Ogun State, that the association would soon shift its secretariat temporarily to Port Harcourt to enable it coordinate a peaceful protest against the killing of the four undergraduates.
The association, however, kicked against President Goodluck Jonathan’s failure to use the opportunity of his national broadcast on Tuesday to condole with the families of the lynched students.
The statement reads in part, “The leadership of NANS condemns the national address of our President in which he did not mention the incident that occurred at the University of Port Harcourt.
“Realising the fact that “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All”, we are using this medium to call on the Federal Government and the River State Government to bring the perpetrators of this act to book without any further delay, within the next 48 hours from today(Tuesday).
“While we mourn the death of our brothers, we are equally pleading with all concerned Nigerian students to remain calm as a seven- working-day mourning period has been declared by the management of University of Port Harcourt.”
I collapsed – Mum
The mother of one of the murdered students has however petitioned the Senate, demanding that justice be done.
In a petition dated October 9, 2012, which was addressed to the President of the Senate, David Mark, mother of the late Chiadika, Mrs. Chinwe Biringa, said perpetrators of the heinous crime must not go unpunished.
A copy of the petition which was obtained by one of our correspondents in Abuja on Tuesday said Biringa’s father is a senior staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
According to Chinwe, when her son turned 20 years this week, he was given money to mark his birthday with his friends.
The petition reads in part, “On Friday morning, we were called by my second son, also a UNIPORT student, that all was not well; that he was hearing bad rumours that villagers in ALUU, had murdered four students.
“I immediately rushed to the scene only to see my son’s dead body being taken away naked to a mortuary in the UNIPORT Teaching Hospital. I could not believe my eyes as I collapsed.
“What did my son do? What did the other three young men who died with him do? First, we heard that the four students were alleged to have stolen a BlackBerry phone and a laptop computer.
“This could not be further from the truth. My son has had a BlackBerry phone and in fact, a laptop computer since he was in primary school. No way could my son steal such a common thing as a cell phone which every village woman now owns.
“We have been subjected to several gory videos and pictures on the Internet. This shows that someone filmed the whole barbarism from beginning to end. My son and his friends were savagely beaten and burnt to death while villagers in ALUU watched. All this has been caught on film!”
Chinwe demanded that apart from clearing the name of her son, justice should be meted out to the killers .
‘Your Excellency, every responsible parent knows what I, my husband, and the entire family are passing through over this beastly murder. We do not want this thing to be swept under the rug like most Nigerian investigations.”
Source : punchng[dot]com
