Unrest as OAU shutdown campus, asks students to apologize

The management of OAU has ordered students to vacate campus tomorrow, Mouthpiece NGR reports. 

This was contained in a statement signed by the school PRO, Abiodun Olanrewaju, in which a cope was made available to Mouthpiece NGR on Friday evening. 

The Management is not shying away from the grief resulting from the untimely death within the community and sympathised with the parents, friends, colleagues and the entire students of the University on this sad loss, and prays for the repose of her soul.

The release read in part, ‘Management condemns in strong terms the continuous and uncontrolled protests by the students culminating in unbridled brigandage, blocking the Ife/Ibadan and Ife/Ede highways and other adjoining roads that could be used as alternative routes, and engaging in other acts that are detrimental to their health and the safety of the generality of the people.

“Therefore, having exhausted all necessary avenues to call the students to order and allow normalcy to return to the Campus and its environs, the authorities of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, have accordingly closed down the School until further notice. This is to forestall further breakdown of law and order.

“In view of this, all students are hereby directed to vacate their halls of residence and the Campus latest by 12:00 noon on Saturday, 2nd October, 2021.

“Consequently, the swearing-in of the newly elected Students’ Union officials has been put on hold, pending a review of the situation.

“In the meantime, the University management has put in place the machinery to unravel the circumstances surrounding the immediate and remote cause(s) of the crisis”.

“The development is generating heavy tension on campus as the Vice Chancellor refused to reopen saying students must go home,” a student told Mouthpiece NGR on Sunday. 

He quoted the Vice Chancellor as saying that he doesn’t have the sole final say thereby coercing students to apologize to the management.