Fresh attack in Adamawa poly

OMEIZA AJAYI ABUJA A gang of hoodlums yesterday attacked another institution, the Adamawa State Polytechnic, Yola, leaving two students critically injured. This followed Monday night’s killing of 40 students of three institutions in Mubi, a border town with Cameroun in the state, after a prolonged shooting by gunmen. Speaking yesterday on the development, the Rector of the institution, Prof. Abdullahi Bobboi, appealed to law enforcement agents to immediately take measures to protect the students following the invasion.

He said that the school came under attack from some miscreants allegedly led by one ‘Abdul Black’, whom, he said was believed to have gained access into the polytechnic complex through the Jimeta police barracks.

Bobboi said that two students who were critically injured during the invasion had been placed on admission at the Yola Specialist Hospital.

“We have complained again and again, time without number to the police authorities in Yola, to intervene, as the security breach is now reaching an alarming rate,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Christian Association of Nigerian, CAN, yesterday said that the directive by President Goodluck Jonathan to security agencies to fish out the killers of over 40 students in Mubi was not enough.

CAN, in a statement issued in Abuja and signed by its National General Secretary, Rev. Musa Asake, urged the President to ensure that the perpetrators were fished out and punished accordingly.

The statement reads: “It is with a heavy heart that the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, received the news of the killing of over 40 students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi; Adamawa State University and the School of Health Technology, all in Adamawa State, on the night of the Independence Day.

“After a careful study of the various reports on the issue coupled with the latest information that there is currently a stampede by students and lecturers, who have taken advantage of the free period preceding the curfew imposed by the state government to flee the institutions, CAN vehemently condemns the barbaric act of the gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram.

“It commiserates with families who lost their loved ones, students and authorities of the affected institutions.

“CAN rejects the theory of election dispute as responsible for the massacre of over 40 students, having regards to the manner it was reportedly carried out.

“It believes that the reason is phony and that such a theory, arrived at in haste, can only serve to shield the real culprits and cover up their motives.

“We are, however, consoled by the directive of President Jonathan that security agencies should “promptly arrest” the killers of the students.

“But CAN is of the view that the Federal Government should go beyond this directive and ensure that those caught are made to face the full weight of the laws of our land.

“It is unacceptable to CAN that students whose parents have spent fortunes on their education would be cut down by some elements in the society whose trademark is blood and sorrow.

“It is gratifying that some arrests have been made by the police. We call on the police authorities to ensure that those arrested are the real culprits so that the innocent would not suffer for the sins of villains like the gunmen. “The police should not arrest those fleeing in the name of making a breakthrough. Security agencies must fish out the gunmen and there should be no cover up.

“CAN believe in the oneness of Nigeria in accordance with her secular status and would, therefore, kick against any divisive actions of groups or individuals.

“It is for this reason that we call on all men and women of goodwill in Nigeria to join the government to fight what may snowball into a religious or ethnic war on account of the siege.”

The association urged the National Assembly to speed up the bill on antiterrorism and “introduce clauses that would discourage those with penchant for murder, bombing and other terrorist activities.”

However, the presence of security agents, who massed on Mubi, following the massacre, is restricting access to the town.

The security checkpoints mounted by the Army and police restricted entry into the town, even as relations of the victims have begun making burial arrangements for the dead.

Also, the three affected institutions – the Federal Polytechnic, the Adamawa State University and the College of Health Technology, all in Mubi – have been shut indefinitely.

However, the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, assured Nigerians that security agencies would soon unmask those behind the gruesome killings.

The minister, in a statement yesterday by his Special Assistant on Media, George Udoh, said that those responsible for the heinous crime would be apprehended.

Moro, who expressed sadness over the gruesome killings of the students, also described the act as “barbaric, senseless and horrifying”.

He lamented that the act was committed just a few weeks after the killing of a former Comptroller-General of Prisons, Alhaji Ibrahim Jarma, by some gunmen in Azare, Bauchi State, in a similar circumstance.