A clear case of murder has turned into a macabre game of Whodunit. First, our “friends” the police, represented by Mr Frank Mba, their spokesman, was reported to have said:
“The policemen that went to the scene only cleared the expressway that was blocked by the students. Two students were killed and seven others were hospitalised for injuries sustained during the violent protest”.
He went further to say: “Any question on the killing should be directed to the Army. They have their Public Relations unit; the police were not involved in the shooting.” Fine.
Now the Army, which spoke through Brig. Gen Ibrahim Attahiru, Director of Army Public Relations. Attahiru reported to have said: “I categorically say that our (Army) troops were not involved. Nigerian troops in Keffi did not shoot any of the students. Our troops were not deployed for peace mission in Nasarawa State. They were deployed for patrol. It is the responsibility of the police to quell riots in Nigeria.”
Listening to both sides as they laboriously deny their culpability in the killings, one is wont to appreciate the underlying factors responsible for the seeming hostility that defines what relationship that exists between the Nigerian police and the Nigerian army. Cloaked in every statement is a deep seated disdain both sides hold against each other.
For a start, it is an established fact that the students of Nasarawa State Univerisity did not embark on a shooting spree neither were they seen clutching guns. Inferentially therefore, they couldn’t have been the ones shooting themselves. It is also a fact that no one got killed, at least at the time the protest was started, until the policemen showed up to “clear” the expressway. Yet, the same Nigerian police have the audacity to look at us, and declare, in the most insensitive manner “we are not responsible”. I mean, it couldn’t have been worse than that.
Similarly, while the protest was on-going, not a single student had a scratch. Not one, until the Toyota Hilux belonging to the military, bearing armed personnel came passing, according to Attahiru, on a routine “patrol” before two students lay dead.
In explaining this unfortunate killings Attahiru, while smiling, said “the Nigerian Army has introduced Counter Terrorism and Counterinsurgency (CT COIN) training for all officers of the rank of Major and below, in line with its new strategy to increase combat efficiency”, as if that is enough to absolve the army of complicity in the killings he went on to say “I categorically say our troops were not involved”.
And while this is going on, two students, Emmanuel Buba Nyam, a 300-level physics student and Aminu Usman Usuko, a 400-level geography student laid dead in the morgue with gun-shot injuries. Even for untrained PR personnel, this is crude. A simple statement such as “we have received report/information of an allegation involving our men. We sympathise with the parents of the deceased. The Nigerian Army/Police is currently investigating the matter and will do everything within her power to ensure the culprits are brought to book” would have provided a soft landing for those involved. To outright deny involvement is akin to saying nobody got killed and those poor students with gun-shots wound may as well be armed robbers.
It is disheartening to note that the arrogance displayed by both the army and the police is precisely what feeds into the distrust that has characterised civil-police, civil-military relations over the years.
On the other hand, the deafening silence on the part of the education minister is, to say the least, disturbing. It is expected that the minister should have shown some empathy by either paying an on-the-spot visit or simply issuing a strongly-worded statement to assuage the feelings of the bereaved parents and to reassure the students of her commitments to protect them, if for nothing else, at least for the fact that she is a mother, and most importantly because this whole brouhaha is within her purview. The argument that it is a state university does not hold water. This is hoping, the federal government sets up a judicial inquiry to unravel and bring to book those responsible for snuffing the lives of these promising Nigerian students. At least we saw and applauded U.S. President Barack Obama’s response when those kids were shot in Connecticut.


http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/index.php/opinion/51774-so-who-killed-them