overnor Liyel Imoke of Cross River
State and the Vice-Chancellor of
University of Calabar, Prof. James
Epoke, have condemned last
Saturdays’ student’s violent
demonstration, describing it as
unprecedented in the history of the
university.
Students of University of Calabar,
over the weekend, went on rampage
destroying over 500 cars and
vandalising buildings as well as
looting valuable equipment worth
hundreds of million of naira.
The rampage was said to have been
sparked off by an alleged armed
robbery attack on one of the
students’ hostels at Malabo at about
11:00pm, leading to the death of one
of the students.
In their separate reactions in
Calabar, the governor and the vice
chancelllor said it was absolutely
immoral and abuse of privileges for
students to wake up and engage in
such destruction of school property,
which was built to serve their
purpose.
Governor Imoke in a statement said,
“the destruction is quite extensive
and it is across the campus and most
unfortunate, whatever the reasons
may be; it is unprecedented, this
kind of wanton destruction of
property of an institution,” adding
that “it is really unfortunate and the
institution has been shut down for
the time being.”
In his own reaction, the Vice-
Chancellor, Prof. James Epoke,
described it as strange, saying “we
cannot say there was anything
inimical that the administration did
that would warrant this kind of
reaction.
He said, “yes, students may disagree
on one thing or the other but if the
disagreement is brought in the way
of normal demonstration, then the
administration would have looked at
it. But for this wanton destruction, it
is not that anything went wrong.
They just wanted to destroy the
place.”
On the allegations that students took
to violent demonstration following
deadline issued on payment of
school fees, Prof. Epoke contended
that “every university all over the
world gives fees’ deadlines for
certain things. There is a date for
resumption, date for registration
and date for examination. All those
things are there. There are
deadlines,” he said.
Continuing, the vice-chancellor said,
“since this school resumed on
January 14 this year, students have
been registering and we say that for
us to be able to compile list of really
registered students and prepare for
session exams for them, there
should be a deadline and the
deadline was given eight and a half
months later, which is August 26.
There is no school you go and stay
for eight and a half months without
registering. How do we know that
you are a student? How do we
prepare for exams for you? I mean,
that cannot warrant this kind of
destruction. It cannot.”
In an emotion-laden tone, he
disclosed that every part of the
school was affected including
lecturers’ houses, asking rhetorically
what they had done to students to
warrant that type of treatment.“The
worst is that they even went to
lecturers’ houses and destroyed their
cars. What have the lecturers done to
them? So it was just destruction.
People just came out to destroy
property owned by the university. I
cannot quantify monetarily what I
have seen. It is terrible.”
Insisting there was no disagreement
with students before now, he,
however, admitted that “the SUG
president had appealed for
extension of the August 26 deadline,
which the school authourities were
considering, especially for those that
found it difficult to meet up with the
fees, and suddenly they came to
destroy the whole university.”

source:sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/aug/29/national-29-08-2011-009.html