Averting Militant Attacks On UNIPORT

Less than three weeks after the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, called off its nearly three months long industrial action, it is very troubling to hear of another disruption of academic activities at the University of Port Harcourt,  Choba.

Last Wednesday, the University’s branch of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) ordered its members to vacate the institution over camplaints of insecurity actuated by repeated attacks by irate youths believed to be ex-militants camped in a rehabilitation centre in neighbouring  Aluu.

The union, among other things, called for a relocation of the abode of the militants and provision of adequate security as pre-condition for their return to normal academic life.

Corroborating the fears of the workers the university’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Williams Wodi said the rampage by the irate youths left behind destruction of university property and random molestation of both students and passers-by, an occurrence, which he said could be repeated if nothing was done to check the excesses of the supposed repentant  militants.

The Tide considers these issues as very worrisome, not only for the dangers they pose to vital academic work and desecration of the supposedly hallow university community, but also for the threat they pose to the post-amnesty programme being pursued by both the state and federal governments.

The Tide is particularly pained that youths on whom a fortune is being spent by government to economically empower, rehabilitate and socially integrate them into civil society as good citizens could in a misguided fury wreck havoc on a place of learning, not responsible for either their welfare or training.

It is equally more regreatable that the rampaging ex-militants not only looted shops but also defiled female students and raided private houses in a violent urgy that threatened the peace of neighbouring communities.

For that same reason, we understand that both the Choba and Aluu communities all within the Akpor ethnic nationality have called for relocation of the rehabilitation centre far away from their territory as a means of forestalling reoccurrence.

These activities indeed raise serious questions on the scope and specifics of the post-amnesty package, which has been anyting but transparent.

For instance, whose responsibility is the welfare, training and comfort of the ex-militants? What were the agreements reached before the arms surrender? And finally, how well has government lived up to its part of the bargain?

We ask because we believe that an attack on a public institution of the kind experienced last Monday would not have been if positive answers to these questions do exist.

This is why The Tide calls for a thorough investigation into the UNIPORT disturbances with the kind of urgency and seriousness it deserves because attacks of these kind on a serene university community by supposed repentant militants under rehabilitation, with its attendant negative impact on academic life, is an ill wind that does no one any good.

Even so The Tide urges  the police to move in quickly to ensure the security of lives and property in the university even as we plead with the university’s branch of ASUU not to embark an another action as already threatened.

This is because, doing so would make one disruption of academic activities, too many.