According to facebook post by some of the students and obtained by this online newspaper, they decided to protest because of the strike but accused the security agencies of manhandling them during their peaceful protest last Friday which is an infringement on their rights.
The post released today May 14, 2016 read in full”
PRESS STATEMENT ON THE PEACEFUL PROTEST OF CONCERNED IMO STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS HELD ON THE 13TH OF MAY 2016.
As earlier promised, we wish to elaborately inform the general public on our ongoing peaceful demonstration kicked off on the 13th of May 2016 sequel to the lingering ASUU IMSU STRIKE which commenced on the 21st of March 2016 and had lasted for over 50 days while we were patiently making necessary consultations with the affected and negotiating parties.
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Before we embarked on this peaceful demonstration, we duly and officially notified and also anticipated the cooperation of the Commissioner of Police, Imo State Police Command, the State Director, Department of State Security Imo State, and the Chief Security Officer of Imo State University Owerri. It is on record that the State Police Command sent two Police Van to guide and protect us during this just course as one van came from the Counter Terrorism Unit while the other came from Orji Divisional Police in Owerri North. We also felt the presence of members of the Department of State Security Imo State who as well joined forces with the State Police Command team to ensure our peaceful demonstration was carried out successfully.
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The Peaceful protest by the concerned students of Imo State University which kicked off from the University front gate was peacefully accompanied by the delegated members of the above mentioned security agencies. We were protesting back to the State Government House through Bank road when some armed fierce looking men on Police uniform jumped down from a white colored hilux van suspected to be the property of the Imo State Police command with plate number NPF9793C at exactly in front of Imo International Convention Centre IICC to disrupt our ongoing peaceful process.
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The Leader of that team identified as the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Imo state Police command stopped our ongoing process as he informed us that we were being expected at the government house by the state governor and ordered that we moved down to the place immediately. We humbly obeyed him as we peacefully and hurriedly moved down to the government house gate only to notice a locked arena with just few security aides suspected to be protocol officers of the state government house.
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We patiently waited for over twenty minutes before some men identified to be the governors representative (Senior Special assistant to the governor on youth and sports - Hon Kenneth Emelu, Special assistant to the governor on ICT and an ALUMNUS of our dear citadel of learning - Hon Ik Ogbonna, Principal Assistant to the Governor on Student Affairs and the principal assistant to the Chief of Staff IMGH on Student Affairs) came out to address us. The S.A to the governor on ICT (IMSU ALUMNUS) had earlier threatened the IMSU students’ life, security and property through a telephone conversation before the protest commenced although we assumed that the threat was not made with the consent and approval of the state governor which gave us confidence to continue our peaceful demonstration.
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The students who were earlier briefed on the said threat bluntly refused to entertain the audience of the above mentioned government representative as they requested for the presence of the state governor or his chief of staff having recalled how they were threatened before the protest. For over thirty minutes, the governor was nowhere close. We had earlier noticed a suspicious telephone call answered by the ACP and after the call was suspected to have ended, the ACP ordered one of the Counter Terrorism Unit members to fire tear gas at our faces but the officer found it very difficult to execute the action knowing how peaceful the process has been, until the ACP threatened to collect the tear gas from him to execute the action by himself. This made the CTU police force member who was nervous to release the first shot in the air but the ACP further commanded him to release other shots sporadically at our faces. At that moment, we decided to go home peacefully avoiding anything that could make us contravene the laws of the land and as well break our promise of staging a peaceful protest.
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Shockingly, the ACP commanded his men to keep pursuing us on the streets of Owerri. This we could not resist as many of us were fired tear gas while running until we ran back to the University front gate.
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We are disappointed with the reaction of the assistant police commissioner for unlawfully breaching our fundamental human rights as he performed the inverse of what they were obligated to do for us.
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We hereby call on The Executive Governor of Imo State, the Inspector General of Police - Nigerian Police Force Headquarters, The commissioner of Police – Imo State Police Command, Human rights activists across the Nation and all concerned citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to help us get the required fair hearing on this matter as we are also making arrangements to seek for Judicial remedy on our already infringed fundamental human rights.
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We remain undeterred and resilient to ensure that we return back to classroom as we encourage all well meaning Imo stars to continue their solidarity with us on Monday by 7:00am for our voices to be heard.
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God bless Imo State University.
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God bless all concerned Imo stars.
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