Tension In Ilorin As Al-Hikmah University Students Resist ‘Illegal’ Arrest

Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara state was in tumultuous chaos on Wednesday, when three unidentified fully armed men stormed the university’s campus at Adewole area of the metropolis to arrest a female student. The appearance of the gunmen raised suspicions, making some male students of the institution to prevent them from effecting the arrest of their female colleague, an action the school authorities supported, as the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. AbdulKareem Age, said it was wrong for any security operative to carry out any operation within the university campus without formally notifying the management about such action. 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 transferred them to the state police headquarters. “What happened this morning is a case of misjudgement by the authority that is supposed to be enforcing law. They came to the campus and tried to arrest a female student. We had to intervene because students insisted that their colleague cannot 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 without making efforts to notify the 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 when I was trying to clear the debris that the students put in front of the vehicles. “These people were in mufti. That is what was 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 clothes and want to arrest a female student, it is not something that the students will stomach. “We called 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 cannot obstruct the police from carrying out their work but this time we are going to make sure that somebody accompanies the lady.” When contacted, the spokesman of the state police command, Ajayi Okasanmi, said the command was aware that the armed men came to the state for an investigation and they followed the normal procedure. “The commissioner of Police directed them to the state CID where they should do normal documentation. The state CID further directed them to take the letter to the Area Commander Metro, who could, if there is any need, give them 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.