ONDO PROTEST: Fuming Students Vow To Take Protest To Military Barracks

The response of military troops in Akure, Ondo State’s capital, following the interruption of a peaceful protest by soldiers, has been termed savage by the National Association of Nigeria Students Joint Campus Committee, NANS-JCC.

The students, who gave the military 48 hours to apologize for their action, threatened to change the location of their protest to the Nigerian Army barracks.

Some soldiers were said to have chased students, who were protesting on Tuesday, against the extended strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on the Akure-Ilesa highway in Akure, which halted vehicle movement and caused traffic gridlock for many hours.

The soldiers reportedly opened fire, dispersing the protesting students at the FUTA North Gate and Roadblock axis of the state capital on Tuesday after the students allegedly refused to let them pass.

In a statement, NANS-JCC Chairman Omotoso Surprise said students will not leave the barracks until “they are done killing every one of us, since they are trigger friendly on civilians and pets to criminals.”

Surprise, who is demanding a public apology from the military, claims that during the attack on peacefully demonstrating students, soldiers destroyed and hauled away goods belonging to the students, with some of the students suffering injuries while fleeing for safety.

If the military does not apologize, he continued, various chapters of the students’ body across the country would begin mobilizing for widespread protests in barracks.

He said, “Without much ado, we wish to reiterate the fact that the Nigerian Students are not insurgents as such the Nigerian army should channel their anger to the appropriate quarters and desist from disrupting the peaceful solidarity movement of Nigerian Students.

“We also demand a public apology from the said force (Nigeria Army) and that valuables carted away by these elements, those lost and destroyed during the criminal operation be immediately restored. And that the army takes full responsibility for the treatment of injured persons during the ugly scenario.

“We await the immediate response of the Nigeria Army.

“That in the face of their unrepentant and brazen rape of our nascent democracy, they will have Nigerian students to contend with.”