From Yusuf Abubakar ,Ilorin
Pandemonium broke out at the Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara state on Wednesday, 11th June, 2014, when three un-identified fully armed men stormed the University’s campus at Adewole area of the metropolis to ‘arrest’ a female student.
Some gallant male students of the institution who were suspicious of the motive of the un-identified armed men prevented them from effecting the arrest of their female colleague.
The institution authority was also in support of the action of the students with the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. AbdulKareem Age, claiming that it was wrong for any security operative to carry out any operation within the university’s campus without formally intimating the management about such development.
The development disrupted academic activities at the university before the police from Adewole police station were invited to douse the tension.
According to the VC, the policemen from Adewole division upon arrival at the university arrested the armed men and later transfer them to the state police headquarters.
“What happened this morning is a case of mis-judgement by authority that is supposed to be enforcing laws. They came to the campus and tried to arrest a female student. We had to intervene because students insisted that students can not be arrested from campus without letting the authorities know.
“It is very unfortunate that anybody will come to the university campus and want to make an arrest and made no effort to inform constituted authorities.
“Anyway if we had not come there to address the students because these men were armed, I do not know what would have happened. We thank God; the only person that got wounded was myself. I was trying to clear the debris that the students put in front of the vehicles. These people were in mufti. That is what is more disturbing. If you come in uniform and you want to effect an arrest, you still need to tell constituted authority. But to make the matter worse, when you come to the campus with plain clothe and want to arrest a female student, it is not something that the students will stomach.
“We call for police and they came. The people that came to make arrest are with the police now. Meanwhile, the student is safely in our hands. She is a 200 level student.
“The situation is calm now. We can not obstruct the police from carrying out their work but this time we are going to make sure that somebody accompany the lady that they want to discuss with.
“If they wanted to make an arrest, they should have told us but they did not do that. That was the mistake they made and the students tried to prevent them from arresting the students.
“They did not come to the office at all. They just went looking for the girl they wanted to arrest.
“We called the Adewole police station to come and assist us and when they came, they came in uniform. It was to these police officers that we now release the men that came to arrest the girl. To the best off our ability as the VC, the girl is innocent until proven guilty”, the VC explained.
When contacted, the spokesman of the state police command, Ajayi Okasanmi said that the command was aware that the armed men came to the state for an investigation and they followed the normal procedures.
“The Commissioner of Police directed them to the state CID where they should do normal documentations. The state CID further directed to take the letter to the Area Commander Metro, who could, if there is any need, give them any police assistance which we believe they must have done only for us to receive an alert this morning that there was a kind of disquiet in Al-Hikmah University,” he stated.
He added, “We did not even know that they were policemen; the Commissioner of Police directed some patrols vans to know what was happening. The DPO at Adewole led two patrol vehicles there, only for them to discover that those people were the policemen that came on Tuesday, 10th June, 2014.
“In any case the Commissioner of Police has ordered that the policemen be brought to the head quarters and he directed investigation into the matter to know if what they said they came to do was actually what they did there”.