Attempts to Cover up Brutal Attack on ERC Members and Activists in OAU

Police and University Authorities Trying to Cover up the Perpetrators of the Violence

* ERC Demands Arrest and Prosecution of the Perpetrators  * For an Independent and Democratic Commission of Inquiry

Press Statement

Since Sunday 30 November 2014 when Pro-Goodluck Jonathan Students' Union leaders viciously attacked members of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and radical student activists for daring to protest against President Jonathan during his political campaign visit to the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) last Friday (28 November 2014), subterranean moves are being made by the University authorities and the Osun State Police command to cover up the violence and allow the perpetrators go scot free.

This is combined with lies and distortions to belittle the enormity of the violent attack and present the whole crisis as a mere "fight" among students whereas it is nothing but a premeditated assault carried out by a wing of the Students Union leadership under the patronage of the management. It is was meant to obliterate the radical section of the studentry who all along had been critical of the University's undemocratic and anti-student policies and are also active in struggles against the anti-poor policies of government.

Instead of doing its work of protecting the lives and property of the citizenry, in this matter the police has decided to be partisan by protecting the assailants while doing nothing to dispense justice to the victims of an unprovoked assault.

For instance on Sunday night, Police "arrested" one Akuma Raphael (Dbusta) who macheted Adeniyi David on the head. However to our chagrin, barely 24 hours later he was released by the Police without conducting any investigation or visiting the hospital to see his victim who lay in critical condition with his heAad cut deeply by a machete and to obtain his statement. Meanwhile when questioned by reporters over the incident, the Osun State Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Sade Odoro nonchalantly replied "OAU students truly fought and they were taken to the Police station. The police counselled them and released them after a while"(Punch newspaper, 2nd December 2014).

Considering the above statement, we ask: is this professionalism being displayed by the police or base disregard for the rule of law and brazen partisanship? We demand that the police mention the number of students allegedly arrested and counselled. We know with full authority that only one student, Akuma Raphael (Dbusta) was arrested and later released. Since the police has acknowledged that "OAU students truly fought", did the police reach out to the other party and obtain their statement before releasing the assailant in their custody? Did the police visit the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital, a stone throw away, to see the victims of the attack, particularly Adeniyi David, who was macheted by the assailant in their custody before releasing him? Did they even obtain a statement from Adeniyi David to verify the culpability or otherwise of the student in their custody or on what rational basis was the release of Akuma Raphael (Dbusta) contrived? We raise all these questions because the already battered image of the police is again on the line in this matter.

In the same vein, the University's Public Relation Officer, Mr. Biodun Olanrewaju when interviewed acknowledged that the attack was connected to President Jonathan's visit but then added in a dismissive tone "it is just a friendly fight. All that happened was that a group of felt they were not carried along" (Punch newspaper, 2nd December 2014). This rather ridiculous comment again reinforces our belief that those who carried out this dastardly attack did not act on their own volition but have the support and blessing of the management and government. Otherwise how can a vicious attack which saw the free usage of machetes, sticks and knives and left over 6 students injured with one in critical conditions at the hospital be described as "a friendly fight"? What sort of friends fight in this way? The University authorities are dragging the image and reputation of this noble institution in the mud and it is high time the Alumni and members of the public called it to order.

The ERC has posed all these questions because once again the history of how the authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University and the Police habitually encourages cult-like attacks on student activists and afterwards cover up the perpetrators such that they become emboldened to come back to unleash more deadly attacks is being repeated before our very eyes. In March 1999, the Students Union led mass of students of the same University to apprehend a group of cultists allegedly of the black axe confraternity with dangerous arms including AK 47 with some round of ammunition and handed them over to the University security who in turn transferred them over to the police for investigation and prosecution. The Vice Chancellor of the University then was Professor Wale Omole. The cult members were wards of rich and powerful in society and later known as cohorts of some management staff. They were arraigned at the Magistrate Court in Ife. However the University authorities refused to produce witnesses in court and the Magistrate suspected to have been compromised did not only discharge and acquit them but also ordered destruction of the cache of weaponry found on them. The university had been closed down over a protest for reinstatement of politically victimized student activists when the matter came up in court. No attempt was made to reach out to student leaders by the management. These same cult members started reappearing in the University when the school was re-opened in June 1999 and were allowed to go about their academic activities by the University authorities even while suspended student activists were barred from the campus. On 10 July 1999, these same elements with other members of the Black axe confraternity launched a deadly attack on the campus killing in cold blood five leaders of the Students Union including the Secretary General, late Yemi Iwilade Afrika who had led students to apprehend them in March.

The ERC is resolute and shall not waver until justice is not only done in this matter but seen to have been done. We accuse the Police of unprofessionalism, base partisanship and compromise in dispense of justice. The attack is not "just a friendly fight", it is a premeditated assault on these who had the temerity to protest against President Jonathan. We demand the arrest and diligent prosecution of all the perpetrators of this deadly attack who have already been identified to the police and university authority.

The ERC also demands the setting up of an independent commission of inquiry democratically constituted by representatives of the Students Union, staff Unions, civil society organisations and human right groups, lawyers and other interested members of the public to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the violence, identify the perpetrators and their sponsors and to also make findings about the repeated cases of victimisation of students, anti-student policies and interference of University management in the affairs of the Students Union all of which constitutes the background to the current crisis. We also demand the reversal of the 300% fee hike, recall of nine (9) victimized activists and a halt to management's habitual interference in the union.

We shall continue, despite attempts by the University authorities and police to cover the real reason for the attack, to show that this is a premeditated attack on the right to protest. Dissent is a fundamental right in every democracy. Working masses, students and youth of Nigeria did not submit this right even under the dark clouds of military absolutism, we do not intend to do this now.

The truth is that during the political event attended by President Jonathan, the President of the Students Union and some other pro-government members of the union leadership in alliance with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) went to welcome him. This was in spite of his government anti-poor education policies which led to over 300% increment of fees this session and indefinite suspension of  eight (8) student activists who played leading roles in the struggle against the fees.

However, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) in alliance with the radical wing of the Students Union leadership led by the Vice President and the Clerk decided to organise a protest to highlight the rejection of the regime's anti-poor education policies as well as raise demands for reversal of the hiked fees, recall of victimised student leaders and proper funding of education. However the pro-Jonathan wing of the Students Union and their allies in NANS embittered by the success of the protest decided to launch a violent attack which left more than six (6) of our members sustaining varying degree of injury with one, Adeniyi David, sustaining deep machete cut on the head.

We were joined by students many of whom were highly enraged by the hardship the stoppage of movement of commercial buses into the campus as a result of the President's presence for a sheer political event had caused them especially that they were in the middle of the first Semester examinations. Many students had to trek a long distance from the University gate to the campus. The markets, butteries and restaurants in the University were closed causing further hardship. The deafening noise of drummers, party members reverie and all that caused immeasurable discomfort to students preparing for their examinations in the reading rooms and lecture theatres nearby. It was this annoyance felt by majority of students at the disturbance of their academics in order to create space for what is nothing but a political event that contributed to the mood of anger which greeted President Jonathan and other anti-poor members of the ruling elite on his entourage.

                                                                                          

Hassan Taiwo Soweto                                     Michael Ogundele                          

National Coordinator                                     National Secretary

ERC MEMBERS AND ACTIVISTS AT OAU VICIOUSLY ATTACKED BY PRO-JONATHAN UNION LEADERS

 IN THE WAKE OF STUDENTS PROTEST AGAINST PRESIDENT JONATHAN'S VISIT TO THE CAMPUS ON FRIDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2014

TWO HOSPITALISED, ONE IN CRITICAL CONDITION

Press Statement

With heavy heart, we wish to bring to the notice of Nigerians that members of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and radical student activists at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) are under vicious attack by a rightwing section of the Students Union leadership led by the President Ibikunle Isaac Motunrayo in brutal retribution for organizing a protest against President Goodluck Jonathan when he visited the campus on Friday 28 November 2014 over 2015 elections.

As at yesterday night (Sunday 30 November 2014), some members of the ERC were hospitalized and discharged after their injuries were treated. However another student activist, Adeniyi David is still lying in critical condition at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Ile-Ife after sustaining deep machete wounds on his head. 

The unprovoked attack started yesterday Sunday 30^th November 2014 around 6pm. Members of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) had just concluded a meeting at the lower TV room of the Students Union Building (SUB) when a group of young men (Akhuma Dbusta, Israel Beji, Ayinla, Teddy, Oye etc) led by the Public Relation Officer of the Students Union Bamidele Oludare and Daniel Momodu (the immediate past Secretary General of the Yinka Gbadebo-led executive of the National Association of Nigerian Students) swooped on them. The accusation of these men was that the ERC had the audacity to organize a protest against President Jonathan.

We have no doubt where this attack emanated from. Some of the ringleaders of this attack like Daniel Momodu have strong links with the President Jonathan government especially through his Senior Assistant on Students and Youth, Jude Imagwe. Also some of them like the Union President Ibikunle Isaac Motunrayo and his PRO, Bamidele Oludare are known paid agents of the Prof. Tale Omole-led University management and recently helped to scuttle a students' protest against fee hike.

Moreso, it is not an accident that all those who participated in the attack were those who cheered President Jonathan during his visit and also posed for a picture with him. We believe they have their democratic rights to support the President. However democracy also means that those who feel otherwise be allowed the freedom to exercise their right without assault. We challenge the presidency and the University management to come clean if they played no role in this vicious attack by arresting all those responsible and prosecuting them in a court of competent jurisdiction.

The ERC detests the use of cultists by University management and government to attack and cow student unionists. Unfortunately this is not the first time. The present attack have too chilling similarity with the bloody violence and conflict that preceded the July 10, 1999 cult attack on the same campus which led to the killing of five student leaders including the late former Secretary General of the union Yemi Iwilade Afrika. Interestingly, the Vice Chancellor Prof Wale Omole who employed cultists to kill radical student activists in the 1999 saga shares the same surname with the current Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Tale Omole.

To avoid a repeat of this unsavoury history and ensure that peace once again reigns in the University, the ERC demands the setting up of an independent commission of inquiry democratically constituted by representatives of the Students Union, staff Unions, civil society organisations and human right groups, lawyers and other interested members of the public to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the violence, identify the perpetrators and their sponsors and to also make findings about the repeated cases of victimisation of students, anti-student policies and interference of University management in the affairs of the Students Union all of which constitutes the background to the current crisis. If justice is swiftly done now to the perpetrators of this violence some of whom are still at large and planning to stage a revenge against the generality of students, then would it be possible to ensure that this crisis is nipped in the bud before it degenerates.

Some of those beaten up were comrades Oluwole Olubanji Engels (ERC National mobilization officer and member of Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Olamide Adabale (secretary of the campus branch of the DSM and an ERC member), Ibirogba Samuel (member of the DSM and ERC), Adedayo Ayoade (ERC member), Omole Ibikun (ERC OAU branch secretary) and Sanyaolu Oluwajuwon (member of the Pacesetters Movement). They all sustained vicious wounds. Ibirogba Samuel was stabbed with knife and nails in the head, back and arm while Adeniyi David - a student activist and collaborator of the ERC - is lying critically injured after sustaining deep machete to his skull. According to reports, he was macheted by Raphael Akhuma (Dbusta) who parades himself around campus as NANS CSO (Chief Security Officer).

Adeniyi David's injury is so severe that doctors at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital have recommended an X-ray of his skull. There is currently apprehension among his friends and families about the possible repercussion on his mental health even after the injury heals. In the meantime, the ERC demands the OAU authorities take responsiblity for his treatment and hospital bills. We will continue to insist he gets the best possible medical treatment to ensure he does not have to live with a debilitating mental disability after the wond heals.

It is not a coincidence that almost all of these activists attacked are currently serving suspension from the University for leading student's protests few months ago against a 300% hike in fees. While the Union leaders betrayed the struggle, those who fought courageously were suspended by the University. The immediate interpretation we can give to this attack is that having realized that legal means of victimization were no more effective in silencing these courageous activists and riled by their audacity to organize a successful protest against President Jonathan, the university management acting the script of the state wants to silent them through means of terror by using the pro-government wing of the Students union leadership.

Some of the young men who participated in the attack have now been identified by students to be cultists. In swift reaction to the attack, students of the University mobilized from their halls of residence yesterday night and started picking up some of the assailants. Reportedly, the President, Public relation Officer and other union officials involved in the unprovoked attacks have now fled the campus. A student congress held yesterday has invited all of the union officials responsible to appear before another congress this evening. There is palpable anger against the obvious attempt by the government to use cultists to get back at those who simply exercised their constitutionally-guaranteed democratic rights to freedom of speech and assembly to demonstrate their displeasure to a capitalist government whose pro-rich and anti-poor neo-liberal capitalist policies have priced university education out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians, increased income inequality and impoverished vast majority.

We condemn this attack and vow that the ERC shall not be cowed or silenced in its effort to mobilize Nigerian students and youth to resist anti-poor education policies. Instead this attack, though vicious, is a confirmation that our protest on Friday against President Jonathan struck the right chord. We are therefore motivated more than ever before to organize more protests against all thieving members of the capitalist ruling elite regardless of their political party and wherever we can find them.

We shall also in the coming period strive, in alliance with like minds in the student movement, civil society and labour movement, to build a powerful mass movement of students, youth and workers to resist the austerity measures that this pro-rich government is planning to unleash on public education and the downtrodden in order to save the rotten capitalist system from the crisis it has found itself as crude oil price crashes on the world market. 

We call on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), other staff unions, trade unions, civil society and human right groups to condemn this attack and demand that the government and the university management prosecute the perpetrators of this attack and allow students to run their union independently and democratically without interference.

We commend the OAU students, the Vice President and Clerk of the Students Union and all those who came out yesterday night in defense of our comrades and in defense of the cause of truth and struggle. By taking a bold stand against these pro-government thugs, you are setting an example that would be followed by all oppressed Nigerians when the hour of revolution comes. On our part in the ERC, we remain undaunted. We shall continue to monitor the situation and update the public regularly.

                                                                                          

Hassan Taiwo Soweto                                               Michael Ogundele                           

National Coordinator                                               National Secretary                         

07033697259                                                                             

ORGANISED ATTACK AGAINST STUDENT ACTIVISTS IN OAU IN THE WAKE OF PRESIDENT JONATHAN'S VISIT

ERC STATEMENT

 

Great Ife! It is important that this intellectual community be apprised of the recent attacks on student activists at the Students Union Building on the evening of Sunday 30 November 2014.

At exactly 3pm, members of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) and several other students’ activists converged at the SUB TV room for the Osun State aggregate meeting of the ERC. Throughout the period of this meeting, activists and students discussed a planned campaign for a national day of lecture boycott against attacks on public education and continuous underfunding of the educational sector.

However what was a hitch-free meeting from the beginning to the end was rocked with organized violence, sponsored against students’ activists who participated at the meeting. As the meeting ended, Ayinla, a fair-complexioned man who has been parading himself as the Chief Security Officer of the Students’ Union, met Wole Olubanji Engels (ERC National Mobilization Officer) outside SUB and pushed his chest. Activists, namely Juwon, Ola, AY, IBK etc., as well as students were taken aback by this development, and immediately developed keen interest in what might have transpired – demanding for reasons behind the assault. In a matter of seconds, some students, namely Bamidele (PRO of the Students’ Union), Israel Beji, Akuma Dbusta, Momodu Daniel (NANS Secretary General under Yinka Gbadebo's leadership), Teddy and five other men (who have not been identified as at the time of this writing), pounced on the students’ activists.

What followed was an orgy of beating which was meted on the Students’ activists. No reason was adduced for this fascist development. Juwon was beaten blue black, while Engels got a blob of blood on his eye skin. With time, these bullies started stating their grievances, and alleged us of mobilizing students to protest against Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to OAU. We instinctively connected this expression with a statement credited to the Union President and PRO respectively on Facebook that those behind what he described as “misinformation” of the press would be flushed out of the campus. We are surprised by this quick coincidence!

We have no doubt that this attack was organized, and in fact supervised by the Ibikunle-led rightwing section of the Students’ Union leadership, as the Union's PRO Bamidele was present throughout this whole event and was seen propping up the hoodlums perpetrating the attack. Guided by hindsight, we believe that it is a bad omen for the general security of Great Ife students, if supposed students’ union leaders are organizing public attack of violence against students they have tagged as critics. In fact this recent beating of activists is not the first of its kind. In Awolowo Hall, earlier this semester, the President of the Students’ Union and a student named Braga, including Bamidele, have been indicted in the beating of fresh students on campus in the infamous “Braga o de n wo scandal”. Two days ago, the Union's Financial Secretary, Oye completed his third record of “disciplining” his colleagues at his own discretion whenever he felt he has been slighted. A fresh student was slapped by Oye days ago. Yet the demands of Angolans for justice was cleverly impeded by the manipulation of other colleagues of Oye in the Union's Central Executive Council (CEC) in conspiracy with the University management, who ordered the health centre to put Oye under fake medication. This sequence of seeking asylum in the health centre has been recurring, especially in the cases of Oye’s aggression – the first time he slapped an Awoite in Awo Hall, Teddy and co rushed him down to the university health centre under the pretense that he had fainted. The reign of a tyrant is always premised on the general acceptance and unquestioning of his brutality.

Great Ife students Union has a rich tradition of not treating anyone as a sacred cow in their dispensation of justice. Our immediate reaction, while we were being brutalized and dehumanized, was not to engage these violence-happy individuals in any street brawl. Instead, we called the attention of students in Awolowo Hall, the political headquarters of Great Ife Students’ Union, to the situation. In a funny development, before Awoites reached the Ken Saro Wiwa building, the site of this attack, the aggressors, that is: Bamidele, Akuma, Israel Beji, Momodu Daniel and others quickly stuffed themselves into the HIACE TOYOTA BUS given to the Union leadership by Senator Iyiola Omisore. In the hullabaloo that followed, Teddy and T-Babs stayed behind threatening brimstone and fire; that they would mete out the same beating on Awoites as well. Awoites simply bundled him to Awolowo hall chanting Anti-Cultist slogans.

As if Awolowo Hall residents have a general gift of clairvoyance, minutes later cultists did attempt to make incursion to the University community. At the University Gate, Sammy and some other students’ activists – who were trying to make their way into the university campus after hearing reports of attacks on students – were attacked by cult members who flaunted themselves as members of Eye confraternity with Akuma Dbusta leading them. Sammy sustained injury from a deep-knife cut, while a student recognized as David suffered a cutlass blow – he is currently receiving treatment at Intensive Care Unit of Seven Day Adventist Hospital, after he was rejected by the OAU health centre and OAUTHC respectively for undisclosed reasons. Later on, in what police termed as order from the University authorities, Akuma Dbusta was spirited away from the university gate as Awoites moved to the gate to secure his arrest. Still, students arrested two of these cult members identified to have perpetrated this attack, and they were immediately brought down to Awolowo Hall.

From our own perspective, the attack today suggests the grave danger posed against individual students by the brutality and impunity of the men of the underworld acting the script of the rightwing section of the leadership of the Students Union. A careful comparison of this development with the July 10, 1999 attack shows similar factors of conspiracy and attack against Union activists, who the university community have tried in vain to silence. And it is pathetic that the leadership of the union is key to this conspiracy. Or how else do we term the haphazard release of the Union PRO on facebook, who supervised the whole event from the start, expressing ridiculously and falsely that “how can suspended students be beating legitimate students”? Of course the only intention behind such subterfuge is to deceive the percentage of students who are not residing on campus, and would need social media updates to get themselves apprised of situations on campus. Why did Bamidele take to his heel in company of Akuma and Ayinla? In the spirit of intellectualism, he should have remained on campus to inform students on the situation of things instead of lying behind social media mask. At least the Vice-President of the Union was around during this whole event.

We enjoin students not to be deceived by the divisive ploys of these elements. In our strong opinion, there is currently no going back on a Congress of students to address the recent cultist penetration on campus. And we hope that the individuals giving false cock and bull stories on the social media can appear before mass of Great Ife students to defend why they organized such aggression against fellow students. At this point, we call on Great Ife students to be vigilant and question all suspected or crooked movement, including behaviors on campus. What we have learnt from the aftermath of July 10, 1999 massacre is that the security of students is their collective responsibility.

This attack has been launched against us as payback for organising a protest against President Jonathan. We assure everyone that we shall not be deterred but shall continue to play our role in the struggle to save education and reclaim Nigeria.

ERC OAU Secretariat