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- Gombe, Kogi, Benue evacuate indigenes in security guarded buses
Abiodun OBA
The University of Jos (UNIJOS) has shut down the closing down of hostels and indefinite suspension of lectures.
The Registrar of the university, in a statement on Friday in Jos, said the decision to suspend lectures and shut hostels was taken at the meeting between management and the Committee of Deans, Directors and Provost of the institution on Friday, August 20
“The insecurity in Jos, which led to the imposition of dusk-to-dawn curfew has affected the academic activities and forced the university to suspend its second semester examinations for the 2019/2020 academic session.
“Students of the university continued to experience attacks from hoodlums, a situation that has led to the death of some of our students.
“Consequently, the management of the university, after an emergency meeting with the Committee of Deans, Directors and Provost on Friday, ordered the suspension all academic activities in the university until further notice.
“Management has also directed the closure of all students hostels until further notice.
“The decision, which is in best interest and for the safety of our students, is subject to ratification by the Senate of the University,” Danjem said.
The registrar advised students to vacate all hostels and go back home and other safer abodes until the security situation in Jos improves.
He appealed to security agencies to beef up security at the various students location to enable them vacate to their destinations safely.
“Students are also advised to use safe means of transportation to their respective safer destinations.
“We wish to passionately appeal that a joint patrol team of armed soldiers and other law enforcement agencies should beef up security and ensure that students are adequately protected as they vacate their various hostels to safer destinations,” he appealed.
He said that management would give adequate notice of resumption when normalcy is fully restored in Jos and environs.
Danjem thanked the government of the state and security agencies for ensuring the safety of majority of students of the university even as attacks on innocent people persist in Jos.
He called on the students to be law abiding and desist from activities that would put them in trouble.
Some students of the university have been killed and others injured in the current insecurity that has bedevilled Jos in the last one week.
Meanwhile, Gombe State Government on Friday, successfully evacuated its stranded students studying at the University of Jos.
The students returned in four buses with security protection provided by the State Government following the recent killings of travellers by yet-to-be-identified gunmen in Jos, Plateau State.
Commissioner for Higher Education, Meshack Audu, who couldn’t provide the actual number of students brought back to the state, said the government was still profiling the evacuees.
He revealed that this was sequel to the directive of Governor Muhammadu Yahaya mandating that everything necessary must be done to return students of the state back home.
The Commissioner said, “We were still profiling them when I left, for another function maybe by Monday, I will be able to let you know. We conveyed them in four (4) buses. Specifically, I won’t be able to tell you the number so that I won’t give you wrong number.
“In compliance with the Governor’s directive, the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Ibrahim Abubakar Njodi instructed me to immediately facilitate and monitor the safe return of the students. We had to do that as a responsible government and they have all been evacuated to safety.”
Commenting on why the process of evacuation involved the security agencies, Audu noted that the state didn’t want to take chances since the route to Gombe may not be unpredictable.
“They were so happy yesterday, you needed to see the joy in their faces. We had to send police escort from Gombe State to accompany the four buses, they (students) may leave there safely but we don’t know the situation of things on the road.
“But thank God they arrived safely and have since been united with their families. Our duty was to bring them to Gombe and they go to their various homes,” Audu added.
In a related development, Kogi State Government evacuated its indigenes trapped at the University of Jos (UniJos) after the school was closed by the management.
Onogwu Muhammed, Chief Press Secretary to the governor in a statement on Saturday said the students returned in buses with heavy security escorts provided by the State Government on Friday.
He noted that the state governor, Yahaya Bello mandated that everything necessary must be done to return the students safely back home.
The governor, however, assured the students that they would return back to school soon stating that authorities in Plateau State are on top of the situation to restore law and order in the state.
He also praised the students for their orderly conduct and patience during the unfortunate incident.
Students of the University on Thursday raised the alarm over the continued attacks on them by hoodlums, whom they said had killed four students over the week.
The alarm came just as the corpse of a 100-level student of the university was found on the ground within the Naraguta permanent site of the institution on Thursday.
Beyond the UNIJOS campus, Plateau State has been ravaged by security crisis with series of attacks and killings occurring in the state.
The Benue State government also evacuated its indigenes studying in Jos according to a statement by Terver Akase, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Samuel Ortom on Friday.
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