But, for sheer mother-luck, an aggressive showoff by a mob of youth, said to be members of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) Students Union Government (SUG), at the university’s auditorium, would have resulted in a more deadly encounter of gigantic proportion, where multiple deaths, spilling of blood and arson would have been.
Already, some politicians and the Edo State government, ruled by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), with Godwin Obaseki as its governor, are taking Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, a governorship candidate of the rivaled Labour Party (LP), through the tunnels, as they now blame him (Akpata) as the cause of the spat.
But, for the deft handling of the ugly situation by the police and the university security men, present at the venue, the spat could only result a shouting match and mere fisticuffs between the lecturers and students, devoid of deaths, severe maiming and arson.
This writer would say ‘kudos regimental’ to the police and other security agents, who released staccatos of skyward gun shots, as part of a minimal force, to disperse the irate students from carrying out a deadly mission. The students, who made punch-bags of their lecturers and senior staffs, had surged forward to pounce on Akpata, who was glued to his seat, shocked and calmed all through, until he left the scene, in a jiffy
Some media men eyewitnesses few days ago, inside the UNIBEN ivory tower, a pioneer institution in Edo State, owe and managed by the federal government, how some members of its Student Union Government (SUG), had had an unwarranted bodily clash with their lecturers and senior staff, while Olumide Osaigbovo Akpata, a governorship candidate of the Edo State chapter of the Labour Party (LP), was a main guest to a function organised by the senior staff.
Hell was let loose when the students stormed the venue, while chanting slogans, demanding to have audience, immediately, with Akpata, the LP flag-bearer in the September, 2024 election in the state. Their insistence to confront Akpata, met a brick wall as the university senior staff, the host of the event and the university security men, stopped them. The staff stood their grounds that it was a breach of protocol for the students to want to harass their visitors and commandeer an event in which they had no stake
Scuffles had ensued between the two as the ‘adamant’ students gained in numbers, but the security men had applied more minimum force by firing into the air, thus quelling the fights.
As Akpata and his retinue hurriedly exited the campus, there were more barricades, manned by the irate students, with the intent to trap Akpata. There upon, the police had applied another minimal force to clear the way for Akpata to get his freedom.
An immediate press statement by the university authority, did not only identify the mob as members of the Students Union Government (SUG) of the institution, but condemned their actions of disrupting the event as lawless. From the same release by Mrs. Benedicta Ehanire, the university Public Relations Officer, the public got to confirm that the students were not actually the organisers of the event, neither were they a part of it.
Akpata, a former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), had condemned the incident as an invasion and attempts to assassinate his person, thus pointing accusing fingers at the Governor Obaseki-led state PDP. In the same statement, Akpata had doubted if the youths, who attacked him were actually students (and not hired political thugs) and elected members of the SUG of the institution, who ought to be urbane and non-violent in their approach.
There had been torrents of responses from the PDP’s quarters, with the first shot by Chris Nehikhare, a longstanding Publicity Secretary of the state’s chapter of PDP, who was transmuted as the state’s Commissioner of Information. Nehikhare is more polished image-maker, than the spiteful Crusoe Osagie, a now-silenced mouthpiece of Governor Obaseki, who all along, indulged in reckless utterances and antagonistic public deeds, in consonance with the governor’s unpleasant public conduct.
Whilst Nehikhare debunked the assassination claims of Akpata as untrue, Andrew Egbadon and Tony Okoegene, two chieftains of the PDP, who claimed to have written from distant villages in Edo Central zone, and were truly far away from the scene of the incident, faulted Akpata as the cause of the incident. And it is understandable why in Edo, in every era of governorship election, is treated to twisted news.
And instead of eating the humble pie and without a sense of shame that they sparked off a mayhem on their campus, whereas elected SUG members, should maintain the peace and orderliness within their domicile, are the same students and their allies who dare to issue an untidy press statement, in which they demanded apologies from Akpata. What apologies?
Pointedly, the students seemed to have been emboldened by the illicit goading given them by the PDP and its state government, instead of condoning their excesses. That the students have no respect for their lecturers and senior staff, who take them through the learning cause of life, is also clearly evidenced in the manner they tried to ambush Akpata, a fatherly person, who had always deplored his expertise and position to fight for the cause of Nigerian students and the youth. Those SUG students, if they know themselves so well, should have known that they owed Akpata the duty of care and protection on their campus, and not the other way round.
The students also condemned the policemen for having to shoot at them, whereas it was skyward discharge, which had minimised the students’ daring attacks. Besides, there are hardly police officers who would unduly attack students in their campuses. Not when the EndSARS’s crisis is still fresh in our minds.
Absurdly, Filaga (throwing of chairs) and ‘Filogo’ (breaking of bottles), a long-winded Edo lingo for political brigandage, would come handy at describing the attendant mayhem. The ‘roadside’ expression was coined and made popular by a receptive Patrick Obahiagbon, who has Igodomigodo, as another saliva-drying nickname.
Obahiagbon, a notable lawmaker, was definitely appalled by the brigandage associated with the PDP, his former party, that he coined the word. And it is left for all to see whether the Edo PDP, with Governor Obaseki on the saddle, had deviated from the epithets, in his interaction with his ruling party and the people?
All through to the twilight of his nearly eight years of a double-tenure as Edo’s helmsman, Obaseki had the ingenuity of sustaining wholesome investment in Filaga Filogo than his numerous MOUs! Indeed, Governor Obaseki and his PDP ruling house had taken political brigandage to a climax, so much so that it is now a pastime that has crept into Edo polity, as it now an inglorious culture. Edo people can’t forget in a hurry, the ‘4+4 Ogbane’ and the ‘Togba’ street gangs, which he inculcated into Edo’s political lexicon and psyche.
.
With the governorship elections holding in some months, the Edo public is already having negative indications that it would be a rule of the jungle and not of the democratic tenets of freeness and fairness.
The UNBEN’s ugly episode, in a state Governor Obaseki is the chief security officer, and the one called to question, when there are breaches, is not at all a good omen for all and sundry. More so when the party he leads, is the same fingered as a mastermind of the UNIBEN fiasco
Post a Comment