From Lateef Dada, Osogbo
About fifty hoodlums on Monday attacked the management of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) and some reporters.
The thugs who were shooting sporadically at the entrance of Oduduwa Estate, Parakin street, were armed with various weapons, including guns, cutlasses, axes and clubs. They barricaded the road and caused chaos in the area for some minutes.
OAU Vice-Chancellor Prof Eyitope Ogunbodede had led management and journalists to inspect the piece of land allegedly being encroached by the Ile-Ife community when the thugs attacked them.
The VC immediately directed the driver and other people in his entourage to reverse and they escaped under serious threat by the thugs.
Speaking with reporters after returning to the campus, the VC condemned the attack, describing it as ‘uncalled for.’
‘You can see that it is only God that saved us today. You can see that we are in a very serious situation as far as OAU land is concerned. You can see the shooting and all sorts of things but we thank God that we all survived it.
‘We have been to the area where the disputed land is, it is part of the gazetted land of the university, and you can see the kind of the action that was put up at the area. We have a hostel there which has been completed over two and half years but we have not been able to occupy the place. I don’t want to lose any of our students. We are short of accommodation for our students but it’s not worth the lives of our students.
‘We will try as much as possible to continue to maintain peace because the university can not continue to exist without the community. We will try as much as possible to continue to reach a perfect understanding with the community. We have been doing it. We have succeeded over many years and we will continue to do it,’ he said.
On the next step the university intends to take, the VC said: ‘We will try as much as possible to ensure that we continue to maintain peace and harmony with the community.
‘We have reached out to the federal government and they have given us a matching order. They are not interested in ceding an inch of the university land to anybody.
‘The Federal Government has also given us a substantial amount of money to start the fencing. They are conscious of the fact that we have a council for the university. The council is also being conscious of the fact that we have maintained cordial relationships with the community and we will continue to maintain that relationship but not at the expense of the university land.
‘We are not going to allow people to occupy the gazetted land without approval from the federal government. If the federal government decide to revise it, no problem. But, as far as that is still standing, it is going to be difficult for anybody to just cede out of the university land.
‘Ooni is aware and he has given us his words that he’s trying to ensure that sanity prevails and we all live in peace,’ he said.