Ololade Adeyanju
Students went on rampage inside the main campus of the Lagos State University (LASU), in Ojo and in the Igando area of Lagos, Monday afternoon, following the killing of a student of the institution by the driver of a truck in Igando area of Lagos.
Witnesses told Newsmakers that the student, identified as Ugwanyi Cyril Onyekachi, a 500 level student of the Faculty of Law, was stabbed with a bottle by the driver during an altercation around Igando bus stop, on Sunday. The student succumbed to his injuries in the early hours of Monday.
The two were said to have engaged in an argument after the truck, which was carrying soft drinks, allegedly hit the car the deceased and some other students were going to school in from the rear.
The deceased was said to have stepped out of the car to challenge the truck’s driver. Both of them, however, got into an argument that quickly degenerated into a scuffle.
Students who got wind of the student’s death were said to have quickly mobilised to the Igando police station to demand that the culprit be released to them, but were rebuffed by the police.
The enraged students attempted to overpower the policemen at the station and this led to the arrest of the students’ union president, identified as Kappo Samuel.
The remaining students returned to the campus to mobilise more their colleagues with the intent of storming the Igando police station, but the authorities ordered the school’s gate shut to check the rampaging students, who resorted to barricading major roads inside the campus.
Newsmakers learned that calm had been, subsequently, restored in the affected area, as well as on campus following the release of the arrested students’ leader and the assurance given by the police that the culprit would be duly prosecuted.
The institution’s public relations officer, Ademola Adekoya, told Newsmakers on telephone that the state’s police commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, had called the Vice Chancellor to assure him that justice would be done in the matter.
He also blamed the police for escalating the situation with their ill-considered arrest of the students’ union leader.
He said calm had been restored on the campus, while the institution’s authorities are collaborating with the police to prevent further outbreak of violence in the affected area.