The leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Ogun State has asked the Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Dr Olanrewaju Olusegun Aluko, to immediately reinstate the suspended President of the polytechnic’s Students Union Government (SUG), Adegboye Olatunji, to avert the wrath of Ogun State students.
DAILY POST recalls that Olatunji was paraded by the Ogun State Police Command in February over alleged involvement in cultism; he was charged to court and granted bail.
Then, NANS accused the Ogun State police of complicity, saying it will mobilize students on a statewide protest if the police did not stop Olatunji’s “unlawful detention”.
The police at the time, dared the student to embark on the protest if they were ready to go to jail.
Since then, the management of the polytechnic, in a statement signed by the Deputy Registrar, Public Relations Unit, Sola Abiala, suspended Olatunji as a student of the school.
Reacting at a press conference he addressed on Tuesday, in Abeokuta, the Chairman of Ogun NANS Joint Campus Committee (JCC), Tomiwa Bamgbose, said the Ogun State students “condemn the act of intimidation and victimization of the President of the Student Union Government (SUG) Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Adegboye Emmanuel Olatunji by the Rector, Dr. Aluko and some management staff of this institution.”
Bamgbose alleged that the allegation of cultism levelled against Olatunji, “his arrest and detention was orchestrated by the Rector.”
According to the students’ leader, “the cultism allegation trial was an attempt by the Rector and some management staff of the institution to frame up our colleague in the struggle, when all attempts to cow him from raising some fundamental questions as regards the management of the institution’s resources was not yielded to by him.”
He condemned what was described as “the quick manner in which the management of the institution suspended him without giving him the opportunity to defend himself in line with principle of fair hearing as guaranteed and enshrined under Section 36(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).”
Speaking further, Bamgbose emphasized that students leaders in Ogun State will continue to resist any attempt to turn them to stooges in the hands of school managements, saying, “we will continue to defend the interests of our students at all times, in all fronts.”
Making a request on behalf of other Ogun State students, he stressed, “We hereby call for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of our colleague, pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation by the Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Police Force.”
He said his suspension was affecting him psychologically, revealing that, “it was responsible for an attempt by him to commit suicide” some days back.
“Failure to reinstate him shall be met with full resistance by the leadership of all Students’ Unions in Ogun State because we cannot allow our institutions’ managements to be intimidating and victimizing us because we ask for accountability of resources accruing to our institutions’ coffers,” he stressed.
