Pandemonium rocked the Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia, on Wednesday
after a protest turned tragic, two students reportedly killed while
several others injured.
Reports gathered that it all started when
an ND 2 student of Accountancy department was knocked down and killed
by a vehicle using one way on Tuesday.
The aggrieved students, on
Wednesday, blocked the main road in a peaceful protest demanding the
state government to install speed bumps on the road.
The protest
reportedly took another dimension when the security operatives called to
calm the scene reportedly teargas and bullets in the air and at the
students.
Speaking to newsmen, the Public Relation Officer
(PRO) of the Student Union Government (SUG), Jafaru Habibu, explained
that “the incident has been reoccurring in the school for sometime
because we have lost a lot of students and this sparked a lot of
reactions from students and we decided to embark on a peaceful protest.”
”While
they were protesting the loss of their student on the Lafia- Akwanga
highway, the police shot two of their students of which one died
instantly while the other one has been rushed to the hospital.
”We
are always paying all the fees the institution ask us to pay so they
should also meet our demands, government has continued to turn deaf ears
to our plea of constructing bumps along the school road,” he added.
The
Registrar of the Polytechnic, Labani Joseph, said that the management
had earlier appealed to the students to shelve their protest and go back
to class saying that the management of the institution promised to look
into the matter but the students paid deaf ears to their pleas.
He
explained that, when the protest got to its peak, they had to invite
the security operatives to calm down the situation, which led to the gun
duel between the students and security operatives.
The Registrar, however, pronounced that, the school has been closed down indefinitely as a result of the crises.