* Many reportedly shot, 20 arrested

By TONY EDIKE

THE university town of Nsukka was thrown into turmoil yesterday as students of the University of Nigeria (UNN) staged a violent protest against increase in school fees and the alleged mismanagement of the institution by the vice chancellor, Professor Bartho Okolo and his management team.

The residence  of the vice chancellor and some senior staff quarters were vandalized while several official and private cars were destroyed in the incident which left several persons including staff and students of the institution with injuries.

Several students were allegedly shot by anti-riot policemen drafted from Nsukka Police Division to quell the riot.  A first year female student, Onyinye Ngwu of the Department of Nursing Sciences, who participated in the protest march, was shot on the leg by the police and was rushed to the university’s medical centre while others who reportedly sustained injuries in the incident were taken to Bishop Shanahan Hospital for treatment. No fewer than 20 students were arrested during the protest.

Sources said a delegation of the Students’ Union Government (SUG) from Enugu campus of the university had arrived Nsukka campus on Friday to dialogue with the vice chancellor and the management on various vexing issues including what they described as the recent “astronomical increase in school fees” but the VC was said to have shunned the students.

Okolo, who was in the office when the students’  leaders arrived,  reportedly told them  that he had no time for the parley after they had waited for several hours, a development that provoked the students into staging a minor procession from the SUG office to the Freedom Square to express their anger over the alleged “high-handedness of the vice chancellor”.

The students later dispersed with a threat to take their destiny in their own hands and to make good their threat to resist the new fees. Led by the SUG president, Mr Peter Andy, the students mobilized thousands of their colleagues as early as 6 a.m. yesterday,  starting from the Zik’s Flats which serve as the female hostels, and marched to the vice chancellor’s quarter.

Security men at the VC’s quarter tried to prevent them from entering the premises but they were overpowered by the rampaging students who ransacked all the rooms, carted away some of his personal effects and damaged all the vehicles parked in the premises before policemen could intervene.

An eyewitness said the students, who rained abuses on the vice chancellor who was not present at the time, vowed to “make things difficult for him in the university since he was not ready to embrace peace and dialogue in addressing the myriads of problems confronting the students” on both campuses of the university.