EXCLUSIVE: Police Shoot Five Students as Protest Turns Bloody in Lagos

LAGOS PRO, BRAIDE

An otherwise peaceful protest staged by students of the Michael Otedola College Of Primary Education (MOCPED), Epe, along the Lekki-Epe Expressway, on Monday, turned bloody affair as policemen deployed to control the protest allegedly shot five students of the college.

Although names of the students allegedly shot could not be ascertained as at press time, it was however gathered that one of the students, said to be a 200-level Integrated Science student of the College, survived the attack and is currently receiving treatment at the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi.

It was gathered that the protest started when the school authority fixed the  commencement of their first semester examination for Monday (June 17), but allegedly prevented those who had not paid or completed the tuition from sitting for the examination.

Eyewitness account said the school authorities had politely asked the affected students to leave the examination halls,  but they refused to budge.

When dialogue failed, it was gathered that the school authorities went physical and chased out the students of the exam halls and the students reciprocated by throwing bottles at the school buildings, demanding to be allowed into the examination hall.

When the Provost of the institution could not condone the action of the students any longer, he was said to have invited policemen to restore peace and order and in the process, it was alleged that five of the students were shot.

According to a student who spoke on strict condition of anonymity said, "Our first semester exam was supposed to start today (Monday) and those who were still owing school fees were exempted but they did not leave the school premises.

"They protested that they should be allowed to write the exam. This continued and some students started throwing stones and bottles at the buildings. This did not go down well with the Provost and the policemen were brought in to restore order but since they couldn’t control the rampaging students, they had to fire gunshots and the bullets hit five of our students but one of them survived."

Another student said, "We had started writing today’s paper when we started hearing sounds of broken bottles and saw that stones were being thrown at our building. All of us had to run out to see what was happening.

“There was serious pandemonium when we got outside for the next thirty minutes before normalcy was restored. But surprisingly, when I was going to the auditorium with a friend, I saw some policemen coming into the school. From that moment till we ran away, it was like war in our school.

"It was later that we discovered that five of our colleagues had been shot and that only one of them survived the fracas."

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Ngozi Braide, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said she was not aware of the incident but promised to contact the Area Commander.