It’s exactly one week today since innocent and harmless Comrade Peter Ofurum was violently consigned to the cold bowels of the earth. The unwarranted death of Peter Ofurum in the event of Monday April 11, 2016 is very unfortunate. For the promising young Peter whose dreams and aspirations have been truncated, and for the hopeful family whose hopes have now been dashed; this is just nothing but misfortune. I did not witness the shooting of Peter; I have no idea how exactly he died. But however it happened, I am deeply touched by the fact that a fellow student was shot dead in a protest scene. I imagine that it could have been anyone else – even me. I left Choba junction just about 30 minutes before the shooting took place. Frankly, I became displeased when the protest began to assume a mischievous dimension; when some persons brought musical instruments to mount at the junction and start dancing, and some other persons did some other mischievous things. Of course, I would never be part of such. As I left Choba junction, I spent over one hour at Ozuoba where I went to; and as I was going back, I discovered that the protest had degenerated to violence. I wondered why and how it had turned so violent because such violence as far as I am concerned was unwarranted. The police men shot in the air and assaulted students; before you could cross over Choba junction you would have to raise your hands up, and the police men would be flogging you while you moved. To me, such assault was just unwarranted and because of that I had to go back to take other longer routes to my house. Is that the best way to disperse a protesting crowd, harmless students for that matter? In the morning hours of that day, the police men who were stationed at Choba junction were very polite and friendly with the students; they even cracked jokes with the students as they watched the protest go on peacefully. So, my candid opinion is that from every indication, it appeared the police men who came and assaulted students later that day acted on special instructions; otherwise, one would not cease to wonder why and how the peaceful demonstration at Choba junction (I was not anywhere inside any of the campuses on that day so I didn’t witness how it went on inside the campuses, but the one at Choba junction was to the best of my knowledge very peaceful till I left there) turned so violent as to cause the death of a student – a distinguished student, a promising young man who was on first class CGPA and was a faculty president. This is the height of oppression and it is very unfortunate. The action of whoever shot Peter Ofurum compels me to align myself with Karl Marx’s view of the state as an instrument of oppression. What crime did Peter commit by being with his people as they protested? As the leader of students in a whole faculty, he couldn’t have excused himself from that protest. Anyway, Peter’s death reminds me that life is transient and who you see today, you may not see tomorrow. Although I didn’t know him personally, I feel the pains as though I did, because he was a fellow student and a colleague in the struggle for a better tomorrow. May his heroic soul rest in perfect peace.
What pains me more is that is that the school management and the police seem not to be any remorseful about the ugly incident. What I deduce from the comments of some top administrators of the school is that they are trying to justify and even rationalize what has happened.
Whatever be the case, my humble appeal to my fellow Nigerian students especially in Uniport is that we embrace peace and move on just with an evergreen memory of Peter Ofurum in our hearts. There would be no need for further violence or vehement protest, as no level of such can bring Peter back to life. Part of what I think the school management should do to allay our pains over Peter’s death is to adequately immortalize him by renaming a befitting facility in the school after him, and also declaring 11th April of every year Peter Ofurum day in Uniport, which should be a lecture/exam-free day for the students to commemorate this death. May God grant Peter’s family, friends, course mates, school mates and others the fortitude to bear this copious loss. And to the late Comrade Peter Ofurum – a hero, a young colossus, a truncated future leader; sleep on, and God bless your soul.
Kingsley Onwuka.

Sleep on...