The management of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Thursday refuted reports that two students were arrested for protesting the presence of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, on the campus.
It was gathered that Wike was delivering the Distinguished Personality Lecture at the university’s Oduduwa Hall on the topic “Nigeria of Our Dreams”.
However, it was reported that the two students, Oladepo Joshua and Ejike Kelechi, held posters within the hall, urging the minister to “compensate those whose houses you demolished.”
According to video footage obtained by our journalist, the duo was then escorted out of the venue by security agents while the minister was speaking.
Multiple university sources told our correspondent that the students were transported to the institution’s security base, known as ‘Floor 0’ in the school’s Senate Building.
“They were in Oduduwa Hall for the event Wike came for. We presently don’t know their whereabouts,” a student who gave her name simply as Gift for fear of victimisation said.
“I’m just getting to Floor 0. They were taken to Floor 0 together with security details attached to Wike. They wanted to take them away. But I learnt security operatives appealed to Wike’s security officials not to take them away,” another source said.
When contacted, the university’s Public Relations Officer, Abiodun Olarewaju, mentioned that while everyone had the right to protest, the minority should not disrupt what the majority was enjoying.
“Everybody has a right to protest, and the minority, microscopic minorities, should not disrupt what the overwhelming majority allows.
“So, they were not arrested; they were only escorted out of the Oduduwa Hall. We didn’t want the situation to escalate, because some of their colleagues were the ones who accosted them.
“You know, when about 20 students descended on two students, something could happen. So, the security operatives there just apprehended the two students, took them out of the hall,” the PRO said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Olarewaju, who anchored the programme, stated that all he knew was that they (security officials) “rescued them from being beaten by their colleagues.”
“I mean, how can just two students, only two students, decide to disrupt what other students said they like? So, so that their colleagues will not beat them, or injure them, or do anything untoward, that was why our security personnel just took them out of the hall,” he added.
The Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neoliberal Attacks has denounced the students’ “arrest” and called for their release.
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of our comrades. We urge the Nigerian public, the Great Ife Students’ Union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, other progressive unions, civil society groups, the media, and all defenders of justice to rise in condemnation of this repression,” ANSA’s Deputy National Coordinator, Ikechukwu John, said in a statement.
Adaramoye Michael, National Mobilisation Officer for the Education Rights Campaign, added, “The arrest of these two student activists is condemnable, and it demonstrates the authoritarianism that exists in higher institutions today.
The university’s Students’ Union stated that it has not yet received full facts about the incident.
The union’s spokesperson, Aka Daniel, said, As of this time, I just heard rumours. At this particular event, I was not in attendance, and I don’t have any detailed report yet.”
