Powers of Nigerian Police to arrest and bring to book individuals or groups found to have run against the laws of the country are not in any doubt. Society would have been a jungle characterised by the atavism of the state of nature in the absence of modern institutions to regulate conduct and ensure compliance with law and order.
But the discharge of these duties should not be done in a manner that negates the very objectives these institutions exist to serve. That seems the dilemma brought to the fore by the police handling of last week’s protest against escalating insecurity allegedly by students of Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma Edo State.
The students had reportedly embarked on the protest against rising insecurity and inexplicable killings in the area. In the course of their outing, the protest turned violent leading to the pulling down of some billboards mounted by politicians for the 2027 elections.
Some shops were also reported to have been looted by the protesters who were apparently joined by hoodlums. The palace of the Onojie of Ekpoma was not left out as it had its own dose of vandalization.
The protesters accused politicians of prioritising campaigns over the safety and welfare of the people of the state even when the lid on political campaigns was yet to be lifted.
Curiously, as the protest was on, there was no evidence of police presence either to guide the students or prevent it from sliding into lawlessness. So, the protest ran its full course and fizzled out even as some shop owners suffered losses.
About a day after the incident, the police in Ekpoma embarked on a midnight raid, arresting students from various hostels across the university town for allegedly participating in the protest. The action caused serious panic among students and residents, many of them having nothing to do with the protest. When the raids were over, about 52 students were taken into police custody.
Several students lamented that police operatives stormed their rooms in commando style as they were asleep and indiscriminately arrested those they found inside.
The absurd manner of police action was captured succinctly by one of the students: “they came to the hostel at midnight and started arresting students. Many of those arrested were sleeping in their rooms and were not even on the streets when the protest took place”. That captures the contradiction in the manner the police in Ekpoma went about arresting those suspected of involvement in the protest.
Those arrested were bundled into waiting vehicles only to be arraigned at an Edo High Court on sundry charges. The presiding judge, Justice William Aziegbemi said he lacked jurisdiction on the matter. He ordered the suspects to be remanded at the Ubiaja Correctional Centre and adjourned the case to February 26.
Events leading to the protest, the arrest and detention of the students have not gone down well with the public. And the reasons are not hard to locate given that the protest was primarily activated by escalating cases of kidnapping and bizarre killings within the area.
It should be seen for what it is – a spontaneous response to the breakdown of law and order, threat to human life in the area. Those protesting must have been so frustrated by the rising incidence of kidnapping and killings in the face of the inability of the security agencies to live up to their statutory duties. The resort to self-help should sufficiently challenge the authorities to the danger in allowing the degenerate security situation to fester.
Being a spontaneous and desperate response from people within the area, it was little surprising that the police had no inkling of it. Apparently frustrated by its inability to control the protest while in full swing, the police opted to storm the hostels of the students at midnight, arresting those they found there for allegedly being part of the protesting mob. There is everything wrong with this manner of indiscriminate arrests.
Even if the assumption was that AAU students masterminded the protests, what was the justification in storming hostels around the university town, arresting students found sleeping in their rooms for an alleged offence they may know nothing about? What evidence have the police to charge those arrested except that they are students of the university?
It is not only a faulty strategy but guilty of hasty generalisation by assuming that any and every student of AAU was involved in the demonstrations. How the police intend to prove a case of complicity on the part of those arrested remains foggy. But, it is a complete failure of intelligence that the protest ran its full course without the knowledge of the security agencies.
Even then, the statement by the Edo State government that the protest was not carried out by the students but stranger elements has injected complications into the police action. The president of the AAU students’ union equally corroborated this position when he said neither the union nor its national body was involved in the protest. That reinforces the narrative of spontaneity of the action.
How the Ekpoma police arrived at the initial assumption that the protest was the handiwork of the students remains curious. It is speculative and capable of inflicting grave injustice on the innocent ones. They may have been deceived by the preponderance of the students’ population in that university town. This is by no means to suggest that some students may not have been involved in the protest. That possibility cannot be ruled out.
Read Also: Umahi commends MTN Nigeria for Progress on Enugu–Onitsha road reconstruction
What has not gone down well with the public is the assumption that every student of the university took part in the protest – an assumption that led to the midnight hostel raids. Such a mind-set is loaded with the frightening prospects of muzzling students’ activism.
Nigerians students have before now played active roles in reshaping unpopular government policies. The cases of the Nigerian-Anglo Defence Pact of 1960 and the 1978 school fees increase tagged, “Ali Must Go” stand out distinctly in this regard. Things seem to have gone awry in this country with the docility of Nigerian students in the face of bad and unpopular government policies.
It is good a thing Edo State government said it has started releasing the remanded students with a promise to release the remaining ones. That process should be carried out expeditiously.
Beyond the arrests, the spontaneous protest in Ekpoma highlights the increasing frustrations by the public with the unabating insecurity. Citizens are increasingly getting impatient with the reign of terror by criminals masquerading under various guises in the face of the inability of the government to tame the monster.
The Edo State government and security agencies should address the dire security concerns that precipitated the protest. They should investigate further, the pattern of vandalization that occurred during the protest rather than exploit the vulnerability of the students as the line of least resistance.
