The decision of the Ogun State Government to provoke violence in the name of pacifying the agitations in the prestigious institution of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in Abeokuta is not only abnormal but must be condemned.
Even more appalling is its ill thought-out excuse that the police was on a routine ‘show of force’ parade, but on residential, civillian street? Ridiculous! The government must truly have a less than average view of the sensibilities and awareness level of the watching public and the world.
Across the world, one group or another have at one time had pressing issues conceived as deprivation that led to different forms of agitations.
These agitations were treated with reconciliatory intents by the government in the home country of this group and not necessarily as voices of dissent to be crushed like termites.
Just like these other Institution, the students of moshood abiola polytechnic also have the same right to express their resentment to what they perceive as injustice against their persons in Ogun State, a right to be heard out and amicably pacified.
To set the record straight, the students of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) was also at the forefront of protest and agitations for reduction in school fees as at 2014, also the Students of Tai-Solarin University of Education also protested against the scrapping of their institution, these were rallies that attracted the gathering of hundreds of thousands of students.
The same Amosun led government resorted to killing, shooting, teargassing, arresting and also rusticating some of these agitators, they were abused, restrained and their right to express their conceived ideals was ceased.
Right from the get-go it was apparent that the Ogun State government under Senator Ibikunle Amosun viewed this agitators as animals, insects and a nobody to be crushed at anytime anyway.
It is interesting to note how the Great emperor of Oke-mosan ordered shoot at sight, reduce them to their lowest size and use anything to get them scattered was all the rhetorics of words coming out from his bucal cavity.
Initially, the Ogun State Government took the path of sanity by taking Ogun polytechnic to Ipokia, under Yewa Axis to boost the development in the Area.
However, It is unlawful and vicious for Ogun State Government to deviate from the normal process and engage in a show of shame all in the name of quenching the agitations, thereby using the men of the Nigerian Police to harass and intimdate the agitating students from Mapoly.
The police attack and unlawful detention of the unarmed and peaceful agitating students in Mapoly is not only an insult to the rights of human, it is also an opprobrium to the nomenclature of this country as a nation among the comity of nations.
The attacks on unarmed students going about their fundamental Human Rights cannot be justified regardless of how tense the situation is.
The Ogun State Government under Governor Ibikunle Amosun will be held responsible for every single life lost,damaged and assaulted as a result of illegal operation of Nigeria Police.
As a matter of fact, the activities of the Police in the area is a frustration that can provoke aggression from the victims.
This country has had enough of bloodshed to be engaging in an escapade that is heinous and inimical to our existence.
The employ of police personel and weaponry to police the nation is a military era heritage that one hope would have been stopped in a democratic dispensation.
It is unlawful and itself an open declaration of war against fellow Nigerian Students.
There could be no greater act of treason than this.
This confederation of absurdity must be brought to heel before the law and due process.
The Ogun State Government is reminded that the leading objective should be reconciling the Academic Union, the Government Representatives and The Students back to campus and reintegrating them into a new economic and political framework that quitens and dispels their fear of marginalisation and closure of school.
Let it be abundantly clear that if Ogun State Government fails to stop this madness as a matter of urgency, they will be dragged to International Criminal Court for state terrorism and gross violation of fundamental human right.
The Civil Society Groups in Nigeria must and would rally together as we take the government to task on their complicity in the violence rocking the mapoly lands.
This insanity must stop for humanity sake and the future of the country.
Ifemosu Michael Adewale is the founder Youth In Good Governance Initiative YIGGI and Ogun Central Acting Coordinator for Federalists Movement of Nigeria under the auspices of #GetInvolvedNow Movement.