Information reaching TheNewsGuru has it that hoodlums from Ndele community stormed and attacked students at the Rivers state-owned university, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE) on Saturday night.
Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Ozo-Mekuri Ndimele, made the disclosure on Sunday crying out loud that the Ndele community is becoming too hostile and unsafe for students, academic and non-academic staff of the institution.
Professor Ndimele lamented that Saturday’s incident was the third time in two months hoodlums from the community would attack the school.
“Last night, some hoodlums from Ndele community stormed our students’ hostels on campus for the third time in two months to attack students.
“Due to insecurity, the majority of our students left the Ndele community and entered the hostels. Let me also mention that because of the attack on students who lived outside the school, the University management throw open the hostels for free accommodation so that all students would be residential at the Ndele Campus.
“What now is our offence that they visit the hostels at will with dangerous weapons to attack and force our students to sleep in bushes?
“It is unbecoming of a gang of community boys from Ndele to frustrate a most civilizing facility as a university which most communities are praying to be sited at their place.
“In addition to the University security men, we have engaged armed policemen who patrol the campus.
“But our worry is that these hoodlums from Ndele have no regard for the presence of armed policemen around the campus.
“They are rather tempting the armed policemen to confront them in what might result in a deadly clash,” the Vice-Chancellor stated.
He appealed to the chiefs and elders of Ndele and the Rivers State Government for a lasting solution to the incessant attacks.
Ndimele also appealed to staff and students to be law-abiding, while assuring that if the attacks persist, the university management might be forced to relocate the IAUE campus from Ndele community.