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| In the night of August 13, 2015 – around 12 midnight – Bimbola (not real name) and her roommate returned from a night reading class in preparation for their forthcoming exam in November, locked their room and were about to sleep when they heard their hostel mates jamming their doors, screaming and walking up the hostel stairs. LAUTECH students take to the streets to protest against robbery and r’a pe. Photos: Jesusegun Alagbe and LAUTECH SUG |
“They r’a ped some girls in our presence, but not only that, they asked us to start having s*e x with ourselves. They called from among us a guy and a girl and asked them to have s e*x with themselves, right in everybody’s presence. They threatened to use their weapons on us if we didn’t cooperate.
Then they asked all of us to strip na*k ed. Since it was in the night, most of us ladies already had only our night gowns on, while most of the guys were just putting on boxers. They said we should all be n*a ked. When they were satisfied, they called another pair of students to do the same thing and told everybody to watch.
For about three hours, they dehumanised us, humiliated us. Unfortunately, nobody in the next hostel knew what was going on; if anyone knew, they would have helped us to call the police or the Student Union Government officials.”
“Everything happened like it was a dream. They pointed at a guy I knew as my junior and asked him to do ‘it’ with me. When I refused, they s!apped me and I fell. I had no option than to do it. I looked at my roommate and she was already shedding tears for me. How humiliated I was!” she cried.
“It was not a night to remember. I wish I could erase it from my memory. My friend and I returned to the hostel that night after reading in the school because our exam is fast approaching. If I knew something like that would happen, I would have stayed in the school till the morning, but I needed to prepare for the following day’s work. I had just finished having a shower when my roommate and I observed something was wrong. There was no light, so we couldn’t see properly, but we observed that our hostel mates were all jamming their doors at some men’s command.
“They cramped all of us in one of the rooms upstairs and we were all frightened. My parents are not yet aware of this incident and I don’t wish to share it with anyone again. I only agreed to speak to you because my friend here encouraged me to and I feel something should be done by the authorities concerned to stop this barbarism. I know I’ll be fine soon.”
“I believe it is more than what meets the eyes. This is not an ordinary robbery. Normal robbers take what they want and leave. They would not ask students to all be in one room, tell them to go un* clad, r” ape the female ones and still tell their victims to have s*e x with one another. It is a disgusting thing and as a parent myself, I have been unhappy since I started hearing the bad experiences of some of our students,” he said.
“You see, this is a team work. There’s no A, there’s no B. I say I know people but theire are other people I acceipt from our other people in our team that I trust without even knowing them. Maybe those that have problem in the national assembly, I doubt if I have ever met them in my life. Whether Amaechi or others, I didn’t walk into the presidency alone. I have to depend on all the 2-tiers of government from all parts of the country. We cannot walk outside the constitution. You see, there must be a representative from the cabinet of each state.”On whether he intends to reduce the number of ministers, the President said;
“Of course. Unless you can volunteer to be paying them. The country is too broke.”He also reacted to insinuations that his administration is too slow;
“Where’s the money. The FG had to help 27 states out of 36 to pay salaries. Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The FG had to summon the governor of Central Bank on how to pay salaries. Not to talk of projects, the agreements we signed with foreign countries…and so on”On what he wants to be remembered for, President Buhari said;
“Yes, if we survive it, I want to be remembered that Nigerians has found out that I was genuine. That I was only a patriot. Not that I only fought the civil war but that I fought corruption to stand still.
