The people of Omuokiri Aluu Community
have begun to count their losses barely
24 hours after students from the
University of Port Harcourt embarked on
reprisals to avenge the killings of their
colleagues.

The angry students had on Tuesday
stormed the community, burnt some
houses, cars and other property over the
torture and murder of the students on
Friday.

Four undergraduates of UNIPORT were
lynched by a mob comprising members
of the community for allegedly stealing
laptop computer and a BlackBerry
phone.

The students were Biringa Chiadika of
the Theatre Arts Department; Ugonna
Obuzor of Geology Department, Mike
Toku Llyod of Civil Engineering
Department and Tekena Erikena.

When our correspondent visited the
community on Wednesday, few of the
indigenes were seen bemoaning their
losses.

One of the leaders of the community,
Sunday Ahanonu, said he had lost all he
laboured for to the students’ reprisals.
Ahanonu, whose house was torched by
the students, expressed shock that
security agents could not stop the
rampaging students when they stormed
the community.

Sixty-five-year-old Ahanonu and father
of 15 children, worked at UNIPORT for
35 years before he retired.
He appealed to the state government
and the management of the university to
compensate him for the destruction of
his property, adding that he and
members of his family were not involved
in the killings of the students.

Ahanonu said, “I am a retired civil
servant. I worked with UNIPORT for 35.
But all I have achieved for many years
have been destroyed by students from
the university. I don’t know where my
family and I will lay our heads when my
only house has been burnt.
“I lost the sum of N850,000 cash, which
I kept in my house. I could not take the
money to the bank because I was not
feeling okay and went to the hospital. It
was at the hospital that I learnt that my
house was burnt by the students.”

Also, a woman, who identified herself as
Pauline Nwakwo, told our
correspondent that she left the village
when she learnt that security agents had
embarked on mass arrest, but came
back to notice that her bar had been
burgled.

According to her, the rampaging
students forcibly entered her bar and
carried away her deep freezer and
drinks.
She said, “As a woman, I had to run
away when we noticed that the police
were embarking on mass arrest.

The
students broke the door to my bar and
took away a deep freezer I bought for
N66,000. I want government to pay me
back all I have lost.
“The students were killed far from here
at the Burrow pit. We don’t know
anything about the killings of the
students.”

Indigenes of the community were also
seen leaving their homes in droves to
other places in order to avoid being
attacked by the students.

One of them, who gave her name as
Comfort, said she was relocating her
children to Elele in Rivers State and
would only return to Omuokiri Aluu
whenever normalcy returns.

Source:
www.informationnigeria.org/2012/10/after-uniport-students-rampage-aluu-community-counts-its-losses.html