UNIOSUN Shooting: The Policemen Came To Extort Money From Students In The Hostel

The two students of the Osun State University, who were shot by some policemen have said they were drawn to where the trigger-happy cops opened fire on them by the shouts of the students that the policemen allegedly went to harass.

The two students – Adesola Kazeem and Ibrahim Ajao, of the Department of Physics Electronics – were shot by the plain-clothed policemen on Saturday.

The two students, who are receiving treatment at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, spoke to our correspondent on Sunday.

The students, who debunked the rumor going round in Osogbo that they had died overnight, told PUNCH Metro that they were getting better.

The students said they were not Yahoo boys, but responded to the cry of some students, who the policemen went to extort money from and were shot in the process.

Ajao said:

“We were playing a football match and we heard the shouts of some students at a nearby hostel, who the policemen went to harass. That was not their first time of going there to extort money from the students.

“But I think the students refused to part with anything and it resulted in a shouting match. We went to the hostel and asked what the noise was all about. However, one of the policemen pointed his gun at one of my colleagues, he pulled the trigger and the bullet grazed my cheek.

“I ran away after I was hit by the bullet. However, another officer shot at Kazeem and he went down. Before those around could do anything the policemen ran away with the unregistered car they came with.”

Kazeem said he did not get close to the scene of the shooting but was shot while backing the policemen.

He said, “There were four policemen. They always come to extort students in that area. I did not struggle with them. I was backing them. This is why the bullet hit me in the back. “

The Coordinator of the National Association of Nigerian Students in the South West, Mr. Saheed Afolabi, commended the Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Fimihan Adeoye, for ensuring a prompt arrest of the policemen.

He, however, said the suspect should be prosecuted without delay, saying such would serve as a deterrent to other policemen.

The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Labode Popoola, said he was at the hospital earlier on Sunday and was happy to see that the two of them were responding to treatment.

He appealed to the students not to embark on street protest again because the police and the university had begun an investigation into the incident.