ALUU4 Parents Mark One Year Of Students’ Death

One year after the gruesome murder of four students of University of Port Harcourt in Aluu, in the Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State, some government officials, students and civil society organisations joined in sympathising with the parents of the deceased during the one year memorial service in commemoration of their death.

Speaking at a Memorial Mass Service and unveiling of the Four Friends Dream Alive Foundation in Port Harcourt in Port Harcourt, the Catholic Priest Reverend Father Pata Edward has urged parents of the deceased students to remain prayerful and accept the will of God in good faith.

He called on the federal and state governments to give students’ welfare and security a human face in the current political dispensation.

The clergy also tasks Nigerian leaders to shun selfishness and greed which he claimed has bemoaned the Nigerian society and fashion out workable measures that would usher in development and ensure better Nigeria.

Disclosing their feelings on the judicial system in the past one year, the Commissioner for Information and Communications in Rivers State, Hon. Ibim Semenitari decried the slow dispensation of justice in the nation’s judicial system.

Semenitari also said, the Rivers State Government is determined to prosecute the killing of the four UNIPORT students to its logical conclusion and ensure justice is done.

Also speaking, a human rights activist in the Niger Delta, Ann Kio Briggs has attributed the killings of the four students of UNIPORT in October, 2012 to lack of accountability by government.

Ann Kio Briggs also explained that the inability of the University of Port Harcourt to provide enough accommodation and security for students of the institution has remained a vacuum to be filled by government as part of its social responsibility to the people.

She called on the judicial arm of government to bring justice to the perpetrators of crime to forestall future occurrences, stating that the involvement of a policeman in the matter is questionable.

On his part, the President of Faculty of Humanities Students Association and UNIPORT Faculty President Forum, Comrade Joseph Iyama expressed dissatisfaction in the way and manner the judiciary failed to give justice on the killing of four students of UNIPORT.

Comrade Iyama further called on the judiciary to ensure speedy dispensation of justice and avoid the politicization of the killing of the four UNIPORT students in order to restore the hope of the Nigerian students in the country.

While campaigning against jungle justice in Nigeria, spokesman of the Civil Liberties Organisation , CLO, in Rivers State, Comrade Livingstone Wechie condemned the act in the nation’s universities and its environment.

Comrade Wechie also described the killing of 40 university students in Adamawa State and another 40 students in Yobe State recently as a wake-up call for the federal government and security agents to live up to their constitutional responsibilities.

He however explained further that, the unveiling of the Four Friends Dream Foundation in commemoration of the gruesome murder of the four students at Aluu would champion the cause that Nigerian educational system is going extinct and must be resuscitated to tackle the upsurge in crime against humanity.

Making their feelings known to journalists shortly after the memorial service, parents of the four students killed at Aluu also disclosed the vacuum the killing had created in the life of their families in the past one year.

Mother to one of the students, late Lloyd Toku-Mike, Mrs Jane Toku-Mike said, the death of her son in the past one year has not only created a vacuum in the family but has encouraged her to prophesy and commit her children to consistent prayer life to avert repetition.

In the same vein, Mrs Chinwe Biringa, mother to late Chiadika Biringa has commended the media for its objectivity and investigative skills, urging the judiciary to rise to its responsibility of speedy dispensation of justice.

Also, Mrs Faith Friday Elkanah, mother to late Friday Elkanah and Mr Obuzor Josiah, father of late Ugonna Kelechi Josiah described the death of their children as a painful loss to the family and the society at large.

Delivering a lecture at the event, a lecturer with the University of Port Harcourt in the Social Sciences Department, Eze Chris Akani called for exemplary moral values in the society to avert crime against humanity.

Source: The Nation