Five people were feared killed in Ikole-Ekiti, Ekiti State, on Thursday when a police patrol team allegedly opened fire on youths protesting the relocation of the new federal university from their community to Oye-Ekiti.
Some of the protesters and other residents were injured by gunshots allegedly fired by the patrol team.
Angered by the police action, those who escaped unhurt regrouped and burnt a police station, vehicles and motorcycles.
One of the vehicles, a Toyota Hilux, belonging to the police was set ablaze at Iloka. The policemen in the van were said to have narrowly escaped being lynched by the irate youths.
Some of the residents of the town told journalists that the policemen, who were deployed to disperse the protesters, opened fire on them, killing five and injuring scores of others in the process.
They claimed that some of the corpses were taken away in a police van to an unknown destination.
Our correspondent, who visited the scene, saw two of the corpses. One was later taken to the mortuary of the Specialist Hospital, Ikole-Ekiti, while the second, which had a bullet hole on its head still lay at the scene.
The protesters later barricaded the highway leading to Lokoja and made bonfires thereby causing heavy traffic jam in the town.
Schools and government offices in the community were hurriedly closed as the crisis raged.
The Caretaker Chairman of the Ikole-Ekiti Local Government Area, Chief Biodun Akin-Fasae, who condemned the killings, showed journalists some shells of the bullets used by the policemen.
Akin-Fasae said, “The university was wrongly relocated to Oye-Ekiti by the Federal Executive Council. The people of Ikole did not request for a federal university, but the Federal Government gave us one.
“A team of experts came from the National University Commission in company with the Minister of State for Education, Dr. Kenneth Gbagi, and they okayed the site in Ikole-Ekiti, which the Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, also approved.
“Last week, the governor paid over N1.5m to the surveyors doing the layout of the site. All academics of Ikole-Ekiti origin have been making efforts to ensure a smooth take off of the university.”
Also, the Action Congress of Nigeria candidate for the Oye-Ikole Federal Constituency 1, Mr. Bimbo Daramola, urged the Federal Government not to relocate the varsity from Ikole.
Daramola, who is from Oye-Ekiti, said that the relocation was capable of creating disunity among the people of the two councils.
“There are many crisis areas in the country already, Jos is there, the Niger Delta crisis is yet to be resolved; so why does the Federal Government want to create another crisis spot in Ekiti State?” Daramola asked.
Meanwhile, the governor has insisted that the state government will not allow the relocation of the university to Oye-Ekiti.
Fayemi, in a statement made available to our correspondent by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Mojeed Jamiu, said that the state consulted with the Federal Government before announcing Ikole as the site of the university.
The statement said it believed that some Abuja-based politicians from the state might have had a hand in the Federal Government announcing Oye-Ekiti as the new site of the university.
The statement reads, “The government of Ekiti State wishes to emphasise that the decision to site the new federal university in Ikole-Ekiti remains unchanged, irrevocable and irreversible not minding the subversive activities of some Abuja-based politicians from the state.
“Although the new university belongs to the Federal Government, the prerogative of where to site it belongs to the state government hosting the university on the land nature has bequeathed to it.
“We want to assert unequivocally that it is the state government that grants the Certificate of Occupancy to give legal backing to the construction or building of any structure on its land.
“The Government College, Oye-Ekiti purportedly announced as the temporary site of the new university belongs to the government of Ekiti State.
“The temporary site of the new federal university is the State Agricultural Development Project in Ikole-Ekiti
“We are not unmindful of the tension generated by the news since it had long been settled that Ikole-Ekiti is the site of the new federal university.
“The government of Ekiti State believes that the decision to locate the university in Ikole-Ekiti is the best and most acceptable to all stakeholders in the state who were consulted before the decision was taken.”
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer, Ekiti State Police Command, Mr. Mohammed Jimoh, said that the command was yet to get a detailed report on the crisis.
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