Some Nigerians still dont understand the danger of an undisciplined military firing at unarmed protesters. I will go back in history to remind those who think I am shouting as if the Shias killed in Zaria paid me money. On the 1st of February 1971, students of the University of Ibadan held a peaceful demonstration in front of the Zik Hall. Nigerian policemen came and opened fire for no reason, killing the student union leader, Mr. Kunle Adepeju, he was a final year student of agricultural science and the only child of his parents. He remains the first student martyr gunned down by the Nigerian Police. It was that case that brought the late Gani Fawehinmi to limelight as he battled the case on behalf of the students before the Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate the cause of the killings. After Adepeju, who was struggling for better welfare for the students, was murdered by Nigerian government forces, UI students went on peaceful marches every year in memory of their slain leader but each time, the police would come again and unleash violence leading to even more casualties. The vice chancellor of UNILAG then, Professor JF Ade-Ajayi was hurt and as a parent, he was sympathetic to the cause of the students. For attending the funeral of Adepeju, the military government fired him from his job. Over 50,000 students attended Adepejus burial. Fast forward to 1978, the federal military government introduced a new school fees system and Nigerian students embarked on protests around the country. It was known as the Ali Must Go Riots, the same Ahmadu Ali was the minister of education under OBJ military regime and would later become the chairman of the PDP (and later appointed board chairman of the Nigerian Universities Commission by President Jonathan in October 2013 to oversee the education of Nigerian youths who have no sense of history and no bearing for the future). A government bereft of ideas, the Obasanjo military junta unleashed the police to suppress the protests. In Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (this same Zaria we are talking about now), live bullets and tear gas were used on defenceless students. That day, nine Nigerian students were shot dead by Nigerian government forces. At the University of Lagos, another site of major resistance against the new school fees, the same violence was unleashed and one of those that was killed was Akintunde Ojo, Obasanjos godson. He was shot dead by the police at the UNILAG gates. Today, you see that many Nigerian students are not even students, because I wonder how an intelligent youth will justify the shooting of unarmed protesters at this age and time. The educational sector of this country is a big shame. So I repeat, what the Nigerian military did is an unconstitutional act and another episode in the long brutal history of the military oppressing civilians. If you are a civilian cheering this extrajudicial killings, I will assume you are too young to know history or you are just drowned in your own religion or tribe-driven sentiments but you are only doing yourself because if you do not stand up for what is right now, you may be the next to be hit by the bullets of the same military you are clapping for now. And at least Adepeju died for something, many of those clapping and hailing the killings of the Nigerian Shias now will just die for nothing in the hands of the military, like Fela would say. What is bad is bad. This impunity MUST STOP!
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 10:21:34 +0000
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