One year after the gruesome murder of four students of
University of Port Harcourt in Aluu, in the Ikwerre Local Government
Area of Rivers State, some government officials, students and civil
society organisations joined in sympathising with the parents of the
deceased during the one year memorial service in commemoration of their
death.
Speaking at a Memorial Mass Service and unveiling
of the Four Friends Dream Alive Foundation in Port Harcourt in Port
Harcourt, the Catholic Priest Reverend Father Pata Edward has urged
parents of the deceased students to remain prayerful and accept the will
of God in good faith.
He called on the federal and state
governments to give students’ welfare and security a human face in the
current political dispensation.
The clergy also tasks Nigerian
leaders to shun selfishness and greed which he claimed has bemoaned the
Nigerian society and fashion out workable measures that would usher in
development and ensure better Nigeria.
Disclosing their feelings
on the judicial system in the past one year, the Commissioner for
Information and Communications in Rivers State, Hon. Ibim Semenitari
decried the slow dispensation of justice in the nation’s judicial
system.
Semenitari also said, the Rivers State Government is
determined to prosecute the killing of the four UNIPORT students to its
logical conclusion and ensure justice is done.
Also speaking, a
human rights activist in the Niger Delta, Ann Kio Briggs has attributed
the killings of the four students of UNIPORT in October, 2012 to lack of
accountability by government.
Ann Kio Briggs also explained that
the inability of the University of Port Harcourt to provide enough
accommodation and security for students of the institution has remained a
vacuum to be filled by government as part of its social responsibility
to the people.
She called on the judicial arm of government to
bring justice to the perpetrators of crime to forestall future
occurrences, stating that the involvement of a policeman in the matter
is questionable.
On his part, the President of Faculty of
Humanities Students Association and UNIPORT Faculty President Forum,
Comrade Joseph Iyama expressed dissatisfaction in the way and manner the
judiciary failed to give justice on the killing of four students of
UNIPORT.
Comrade Iyama further called on the judiciary to ensure
speedy dispensation of justice and avoid the politicization of the
killing of the four UNIPORT students in order to restore the hope of the
Nigerian students in the country.
While campaigning against
jungle justice in Nigeria, spokesman of the Civil Liberties Organisation
, CLO, in Rivers State, Comrade Livingstone Wechie condemned the act in
the nation’s universities and its environment.
Comrade Wechie
also described the killing of 40 university students in Adamawa State
and another 40 students in Yobe State recently as a wake-up call for the
federal government and security agents to live up to their
constitutional responsibilities.
He however explained further
that, the unveiling of the Four Friends Dream Foundation in
commemoration of the gruesome murder of the four students at Aluu would
champion the cause that Nigerian educational system is going extinct and
must be resuscitated to tackle the upsurge in crime against humanity.
Making
their feelings known to journalists shortly after the memorial service,
parents of the four students killed at Aluu also disclosed the vacuum
the killing had created in the life of their families in the past one
year.
Mother to one of the students, late Lloyd Toku-Mike, Mrs
Jane Toku-Mike said, the death of her son in the past one year has not
only created a vacuum in the family but has encouraged her to prophesy
and commit her children to consistent prayer life to avert repetition.
In
the same vein, Mrs Chinwe Biringa, mother to late Chiadika Biringa has
commended the media for its objectivity and investigative skills, urging
the judiciary to rise to its responsibility of speedy dispensation of
justice.
Also, Mrs Faith Friday Elkanah, mother to late Friday
Elkanah and Mr Obuzor Josiah, father of late Ugonna Kelechi Josiah
described the death of their children as a painful loss to the family
and the society at large.
Delivering a lecture at the event, a
lecturer with the University of Port Harcourt in the Social Sciences
Department, Eze Chris Akani called for exemplary moral values in the
society to avert crime against humanity
Source: The Nation
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