OAU Shuts Down After Students Protested Colleague’s Death
OAU closed its campus after failing to forestall protests by angry students seeking justice for their colleague’s death.
The Management of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Osun State, Southwest Nigeria, has ordered the indefinite closure of the institution following protest by its students.
HumAngle reported how students of the institution blocked major roads in Ile-Ife on Friday over the death of their colleague, Aisha Adesina, who was said to have died as a result of official neglect at the university’s health centre.
In response to the protest, the management of the university in a statement signed by Abiodun Olarewaju, its spokesperson, announced the shutdown of school.
“The Management understands the grief resulting from this untimely death within the community and sympathises with the parents, friends, colleagues and the entire students of the University on this sad loss, and prays for the repose of her soul,” Olanrewaju said in the statement.
“However, Management condemns in strong terms the continuous and uncontrolled protests by the students culminating in unbridled brigandage, blocking the Ife/Ibadan and Ife/Ede highways and other adjoining roads that could be used as alternative routes, and engaging in other acts that are detrimental to their health and the safety of the generality of the people.”
Olanrewaju said having exhausted all necessary avenues to call the students to order and allow normalcy to return to the campus and its environs, “the authorities of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, have accordingly closed down the school until further notice.”
“This is to forestall further breakdown of law and order.”
Students are also advised to vacate their halls of residence and the campus latest by noon on Saturday, Oct. 2.
“In the meantime, the university management has put in place the machinery to unravel the circumstances surrounding the immediate and remote cause(s) of the crisis,” the statement read.
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