ASUU STRIKE: Police Disrupt Planned Protest

No fewer than 200 policemen stormed the
campus of the Ebonyi State University
(EBSU) yesterday to prevent members of
the Academic Staff Union of Universities,
ASUU, from staging a peaceful protest
against the Federal government over its
inability to address the ongoing strike by
the union.
Apart from the policemen, some officials of
other security agencies including the
Department of State Services, DSS, were also
deployed at strategic corners in the
institution to stop the protest.
The EBSU chapter of ASUU had planned a
peaceful protest on the streets of Abakaliki,
the state capital, but they were prevented
them from by policemen who were armed
with AK 47 rifles, canisters of tear gas among
others, who shut the gate leading to the
College of Agricultural Science, CAS, Campus
of the university, thereby preventing
members of the Union from matching
through the streets of Abakaliki and denying
other members of the public and students
who had other reasons for coming to the
school entrance into the campus.
The policemen did a stop-and-search at the
gate of the campus and retrieved all the
materials and flyers for the protest from both
the academic and non-academics staff .
The policemen who claimed to be acting on
directives from Commissioner of Police,
Maigari Dikko, were also drafted to the other
three campuses of the institution: the
permanent site campus at Ezzamgbo and
those at Ishieke and Presco. They claimed to
have stopped the procession from going out
of the campus to prevent hoodlums from
hijacking the protest.
Addressing the union members, the Divisional
Police Officer in-charge of Ekumenyi Police
Station, W.A Mustapha, as ASP, said, “I was
directed by the police commissioner to come
here and ensure that you restrict your rally
within the school premises. There are other
citizens of this country going about their
normal businesses and we won’t want a
situation where their movement will be
restricted.”
This however did not stop the protest as the
EBSU-ASUU members staged the protest
within the campus, singing solidarity songs
and carrying placards with the inscriptions:
“FG: Save University Education”, “FG: Do not
kill University education”, “FG: Agreement is
Agreement”, “Poor University education
makes every sector fake”, “Nigeria: “Fight
poor education”, “FG-ASUU Agreement! FG
has reneged, Say no to Beggarcracy,”among
others.