Still smarting from the open protest against the presence of President Goodluck Jonathan on their campus on Saturday, students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Sunday evening engaged in a bloody fight that left no fewer than 6 persons seriously injured.
The real cause of the violence is yet to be ascertained but sources at the university campus gave two conflicting reasons for the clash. For some who witnessed the fracas, it was simply a power tussle between the Sudent Union president, Ibikunle Isaac and his deputy, Olufunmi Oladejo while others said it was a cult attack.
According to sources, the Education Rights Campaign, ERC members had just finished their meeting at the television room of the SU building when the fight broke out.
Sources say those involved in the fight included some union executive members, suspended students of the university, members of the Security Committee of the SU and ERC members.
One Tedy was reported to have suffered a deed injury after he was pierced with an object suspected to be a screw driver while another student identified as David had a machete cut on his head. They were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Speaking on the likely causes of the fight, a source said it may not be unconnected with the ideological differences while another said that it was related to the protest held during President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit.
However, the institution’s Chief Security Officer, Mr. Paul Ogidi, said there was no cult attack in the institution. “It is true that our students fought. There was no cults attack on our campus. We did not witness any attack but a fight among our students,” he said.
This was debunked by the Vice-President of the Students Union, Funmi Oladejo, who insisted that what happened on the campus could be likened to 1999 cult attacks that claimed the lives of many students.
Though she insisted it was factional, she agreed that the controversy that surrounding the presence of President Goodluck Jonathan on the university campus contributed to the cause of the fight.
She said, “I was to have a meeting at SUB yesterday (Sunday) around 6pm. On getting there, I met a student, Sanyaolu Oluwajuwon, inside the gutter, where he had been seriously beaten and I wondered what happened. After a while, the injured students went to show the injury to others and that enraged many students.
“Meanwhile, what started the fight, I heard, was that ERC were having its meeting when the President and PRO passed through the place and saw them. He then called his boys to start coming that some people are having an opposition meeting at SUB and they all came to beat those on ground.
“After beating them up, they ran away except Teddy that waited. We later realised that those that ran to town went to hire cult members who came with machetes. One of them (David) was even unconscious. We eventually caught four of them. Two were students and two were non-students. “
On the relation of the fracas to the visit of President Jonathan, she said: “As far as I am concerned, that is to mess up the whole issue. They want to make it a partisan stuff and that is out of sense. Our unionism is known to be independent and non-partisan. So, the case of Jonathan’s visit was sardonic. They (Ibikunle’s faction) wanted to pay back the opposition that greeted Jonathan’s visit and we should be a check to bad government.”
The Student Union President, Isaac Ibikunle however said none of his loyalists was a cult member.
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