Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, have reportedly invaded the Federal College of Forestry, Ibadan, Oyo State and brutalized several students, according to SaharaReporters.
The invasion, SaharaReporters gathered, took place on Tuesday morning. A video of the incident seen by SaharaReporters on Wednesday morning, showed the operatives shooting sporadically in the school environment.
Some students injured during the attack were also shown in several videos. In one of the videos, students were seen protesting with placards, chanting “EFCC Criminals”, “EFCC Ole”. Some students in another video were seen throwing stones at the operatives.
The development also caused chaos and pandemonium as students in one of the videos were seen running helter-skelter to save their heads as the operatives shot sporadically.
Meanwhile, the Students Union Government (SUG) has condemned the unprovoked attack on the students. The students in a statement described the actions of the security agencies both the EFCC and the police as primitive and unwarranted in the modern times.
They maintained that Nigerian security agencies had not learnt from the #EndSARS protest and its attendant consequences.
Narrating, the eyewitness, said “Around 10am on Tuesday morning, 24th of October, 2023, a bus was seen inside the campus where some EFCC officials looking aggressively and suspicious were seen inside, on getting down from the bus, some students approached them and asked if they could be of help. “In response, the EFCC officials asked the students the temerity they had to be asking them such question. The students apologised.”
The students, according to the source, told the EFCC operatives that if they are investigating anything, they shouldn’t have come directly to the school hostel in the campus without the school authorities knowing their mission.
“While the exchange of conversation was going on, one of the EFCC officials was seen cocking his gun on the students. They started assaulting the students, trying to beat some up, while some of them rushed to the administrative block to inform the management on what was going on inside the campus.
“Immediately, the students rushed to close the school gate, wondering how on earth EFCC officials came to frighten students in the campus. It was at this point that the school management called the EFCC officials and the students leaders to a meeting to resolve the matter.
“The school management was able to resolve what would have turned into a bloodshed during the meeting, after the EFCC officials were corrected for not taking the proper and normal procedure in entering an organisation without meeting the admin office first.
“Unfortunately, shortly after the matter was resolved, some policemen came to the school gate and started shooting at students, claiming that they had come to rescue the EFCC officials. They shot one student, injured so many others after they broke down the school gate.”
