27 February 2013
PRESS RELEASE
The cold-blooded murder of four students of the Nasarawa State University, Keffi by a detachment of the army drafted to the school to quell a peaceful protest by students over continued non-availability of water is shocking, unacceptable and reprehensible.
These avoidable killings of young and defenseless people leave a sour taste in the mouth. This brutal and murderous tactics by soldiers is a throw-back to the past we would be better off without.
The right to dissent or protest is a constitutional right and not a privilege to be given by any god-head. What the students were doing therefore was in the exercise of that right from which not only them would benefit. If however, it was the considered opinion of the law enforcement agents that the students had crossed the red line in the exercise of that right, the professional and proper thing was to have been guided by the rules of engagement and not to have engaged in a senseless slaughter.
It is bad enough that our utilities on which huge sums of money are spent do not work. To kill those who insist that they work, which in our view, is ensuring accountability, is double jeopardy. We want to be emphatic; no amount of cruelty or mindless violence visited on the weak and the defenseless will stop protests in our land. Our students were part of the struggle that restored democracy in our land, and should not be treated as irritants who do not know the difference between right and wrong. Those who invited the soldiers, those who carried out these killings and those under whose watch the killings were carried out should be held accountable. The government should fish them out immediately and prosecute them in line with the laws of the land.
And except this is done timorously, the government would have succeeded in sending out one clear message, that when it comes to terror there is no difference between the state and terrorists.
This crude impunity and descent into the abyss, we must warn, should be arrested for the sake of all of us. It is trite knowledge that violence breeds violence, particularly in societies where the state no longer has monopoly of weapons of destruction.
We should move from this quick-fix strategy to something much more durable and reasonable. We should re-discover our values and inspire our younger generation instead of this orgy of violence that will ultimately consume us.
School authorities should exercise utmost restraint in dealing with student protests, for they lose control as soon as they externalize them. Quite often, nipping in the bud such protests is a safer option as we know that students when taken into confidence could be reasonable.
And in the event of an inevitable situation necessitating externalization, only law enforcement agents with the needed temperament, education and training relevant to students’ psychology should be deployed to campuses. Above all this, they should be thoroughly versed in the art of internal security maintenance and rules of engagement. This, in our view, makes necessary here and now the retraining of our security forces to deal with students and other civil protests.
Finally, our hearts go to the parents, friends and compatriots of the fallen students. May God give them the fortitude to bear these painful losses. It is sad, ever so sad as our campuses are being turned into grave yards.
Abdulwahed I. Omar
President
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