ASUU STRIKE: POLICE STOP EBONYI VARSITY TEACHERS PROTEST

Over 100 armed policemen dispatched under the directive of the State Commissioner of Police, Maigari Dikko, yesterday, prevented members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Ebonyi State University, EBSU, Abakaliki chapter from peacefully protesting against Federal government's inability to address critical issues surrounding the...
education sector in the country.

Apart from the armed policemen, some officials of other security
agencies including the Department of State Services, DSS, were also,
deployed at strategic corners in the institution to stop the protest.

The policemen who were armed with AK 47 rifles, cannisters of tear gas
among others, closed the gate leading to the College of Agricultural
Science, CAS, Campus of the university, thereby obstructing members of
the union from matching through the streets of Abakaliki, the state
capital.
Pressmen gathered that the policemen were also drafted to both Ishieke
and Presco campuses of the university under the guise that the rally
might be hijacked by hoodlums in the state.

The EBSU-ASUU members who walked round the university campus carried
placards with the inscriptions: "FG: Save University Education," "FG:
Do not kill University education,"
"FG: Agreement is Agreement;" "Poor university education makes every
sector fake," "Nigeria: "Fight poor education.", "FG-ASUU Agreement!
FG has reneged,'' and ''Say no to Beggarcracy" among others as they
chanted solidarity songs.
This was even as the anti-riot policemen apparently, embarked on
stop-and-search at the gate of the campus as they tried to confiscate
all the placards and flyers from the protesters.
Prof Ndubuisi speaks Addressing newsmen at the Campus Gate, the
Chairman of the union in EBSU, Prof. Ndubuisi Idenyi accused the
Federal Government of playing politics with the future of Nigerians by
not fulfilling the agreement it reached with ASUU in 2009.
Idenyi who stressed that the union would not relent in its effort to
ensure that the education sector was fully funded and condition of
service of lecturers improved upon by the government added that no
amount of intimidation from any quarter would deter them from pursuing
their objectives.

"In a democratic setting, people should have their right of
association and movements; I think it is wrong for the Nigeria Police
to restrict our movements. It is even more pathetic that we were
locked inside our campus as we were not allowed to move out of the
gate.
''I asked whether our gate was locked by our university security
personnel and the information we got was that it was the police that
ordered their men to lock it.
"They should be more civil-friendly because the issues we are talking
about borders on education and they have their children in our schools
while some of them are our students."