NANS Decries Incessant Attacks on Students by Police, Vows to Stage Nationwide Protest

By Abdulrofiu Agboola

The members of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) have condemned incessant attacks, harassment and brutalisation of their members by the officers and men of Nigeria Police Force.

The aggrieved students also protested over what they described as unjust and deliberate maltreatment and molestation of Nigerian students in all the tertiary institutions across the country by the Force.

The concerned students who were drawn from different Nigerian universities, polytechnics and colleges of education staged a peaceful protest in Osogbo, the Osun state capital to express their grievances.

Addressing journalists in a press meeting at Nigerian Union of Journalists Correspondents’ Chapel, Osogbo, the Vice President of NANS, Mr. Afolabi Aguda, stated that the peaceful protest was aimed at informing the entire public and concerned authorities about the alarming rate of corporal punishment, dehumanization, and killing of several innocent Nigerian students at every slightest disagreement between the students and school managements.

According to Aguda,”the Nigerian Police Force is under some pressure by the ruling political elite to be infringing on the rights of the Nigerian people in denying them the opportunity of showing their dissatisfaction against any unfavourable policy of the government”.

He said the recent reports from UNIPORT, FUNAAB, LAUTECH, UNIOSUN, FUTA, among other Nigerian tertiary institutions clearly show that the Nigerian Police Force have always mishandled students whenever they are invited by school managements to enforce law and order during the periods of pandemonium and chaos.

“It is time to wake up from slumber and demand for regular meetings between officers and men of Nigeria Police Force and the concerned authorities as stated in Section 153 of the Constitution.

“We equally call on all progressive and democratic forces in the country to join this struggle and mobilise heavily in resisting the high rate of police brutality in the country”, Afolabi added.

The association’s leader, however, boasted that over 40.1 million Nigerian students have decided to storm the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters should the usual harassment of the students continues, saying “anything worths living for is worth dying for”.