The management of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Thursday denied claims that two students were arrested for protesting the presence of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, on the campus.
According to report x Wike was delivering the Distinguished Personality Lecture at the university’s Oduduwa Hall on the topic, “Nigeria of Our Dreams.”
It was, however, gathered that the two students, Oladepo Joshua and Ejike Kelechi, raised placards inside the hall calling out the minister to “compensate those that you demolished their houses.”
In a video seen by newsmen, the duo was subsequently whisked out of the hall by security officials while the minister was speaking.
Multiple sources on the campus told Punch that the students were taken to the security base of the institution known as ‘Floor 0’ in the Senate Building of the school.
“They were in Oduduwa Hall for the event Wike came for. We presently don’t know their whereabouts,” a student who gave her name simply as Gift for fear of victimisation, said.
“I’m just getting to Floor 0. They were taken to Floor 0 together with security details attached to Wike. They wanted to take them away. But I learnt security operatives appealed to Wike’s security officials not to take them away,” another source said.
The Education Rights Campaign’s National Mobilisation Officer, Adaramoye Michael, also said “the arrest of these two student activists is condemnable, and it shows the despotism obtainable in tertiaryE institutions today.
The Students’ Union at the university said it had yet to get full details of the incident.
“As of this time, I just heard rumours. At this particular event, I was not in attendance, and I don’t have any detailed report yet,” the union’s spokesperson, Aka Daniel, said in a chat with our correspondent