The management of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi has shut down the school for one week over the murder of its final-year student, Joseph Agabaidu by robbers.
The shutdown order follows a protest by students of ATBU on Monday after news of
Agabaidu’s death.
Recall that the 500 Level Student of the Geology Department of the Faculty of Science was stabbed to death by a robbery gang who had attempted to steal his phone.
The Director, Information and Public Relations, ATBU Bauchi, Mr Zailani Bappah told journalists that the incident did not happen on campus but outside the school premises as such it is left for the police to investigate the matter.
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Bappah said:
“There was the allegation of the murder of one of our student which happened on Saturday night and it was reported to the school security on Sunday. This murder allegation did not happen inside our university campus. The record we have of such a student is that he lives outside the university campus despite that he is a final year student.”
He added that the institution’s security has reported the matter to the police for proper investigation.
He said:
“Actually, if something happens on our campus, certainly, we have to take big the responsibility of dealing with it squarely. however, if it doesn’t happen on the campus, we have nothing to do, less to do with this issue other than the police in charge of the area where this thing happened, and the university management cannot in anyway address this issue without a proper police report on the allegation which is yet to come to the university from the police.
“However, agitated students this morning decided to take matters into their hands, some of the students decided to start demonstration early this morning. It is the duty of the security of the university to ensure law and order. This issue has been reported to the police and must be left in the hands of police to investigate and address it squarely.”
The Director, Information and Public Relations further revealed that the shutdown order was due to the refusal of some students to maintain peace after the involvement of police during the protest.
He said:
“It is unfortunate that after succeeding in trying to douse the situation inside the university, there was also some group of students who decided not to surrender this issue to the police and they are agitating leading to the level of where they want to create disorder within the university community and they even went to the extent of not recognizing the officials of the university who were there to calm them down.
“This has led to a decision by the management to close down the university. the university will be closed down from today up to a period of one week and students have already been directed vacate all campuses of the university immediately.”
The school’s management has promised to deal with any student who disobeys its law.
