6th April, 2017
Students of the University of Lagos remanded at the Kirikiri prison on Saturday have arrived the mobile court in Oshodi.
Premium Times reports that the students arrived in a police convoy, Thursday, chanting solidarity songs.
The 14 students were taken into custody at Kikiri Prison on Saturday, on the orders of the Special Offenses Mobile Court, Oshodi, where they were arraigned by the police for “riotous invasion” of Lagos-based Television Continental, TVC.
The management of the station has since denied the allegations, saying the students were peaceful in the conducts.
They had earlier been arrested on the university campus while protesting the suspension of a visually-impaired student and demanding the reinstatement of all suspended student activists.
Meanwhile, a group, the Education Rights Campaign, ERC, has condemned the arrest and remand of the 14 students of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, by policemen on Friday.
A statement signed by the group’s national coordinator, Hassan Soweto, and the secretary, Omole Ibukun, said that the ERC was demanding the immediate release of the students.
The group also demanded that all charges leveled against them be dropped.
“We also call on members of the staff unions like ASUU, SSANU, NASU and NAAT in the education sector, to prevail on UNILAG management to immediately reinstate all the activists under victimization and recognize the rights of students to organize a Students’ Union,” the statement added.
“The background to this illegal arrest and detention is the repression of students’ activists at UNILAG for leading students’ protests in April 2016 against poor welfare conditions, bed-bug infested mattresses and high cost of food and basic needs on campus. 11 students’ activists were rusticated last year over the protest.
“We wish to make clear that UNILAG management is complicit in this illegal arrest and detention because this is not the first time the management had employed the services of the police to disperse peaceful protests and repress those campaigning against victimization of students’ activists.”
Meanwhile, efforts to speak with the counsel to the students proved abortive as they declined to speak to journalists.
The court sitting is billed to begin at 9:am, PREMIUM TIMES gathered.