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•Youths give university 7-day ultimatum to dismiss security outfit
•Authorities rebuff threat, say Elozino not abducted in school’s premises

By Perez Brisibe

ABRAKA – URHOBO youths operating under the parallel Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, headed by Chief Joe Omene, are at daggers drawn with the authorities of Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka, over the latter’s refusal to kick out the security outfit, which  personnel were fingered in the November abduction and slaughter of a 300-level student of the university, Elozino Joshualia Ogege by suspected Yahoo boys and ritualists.

Elozino Ogege

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Two of the suspects, a security supervisor and security guard, according to the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Delta Command, DSP Andrew Aniamaka, were attached to a private security company in charge of defense in the university.

One of the suspects simply identified as Onos, confessed that he was paid to be on the lookout for female targets whose body parts were to be used for ritual activities by an internet fraudster syndicate.

Youths issue ultimatum on disengagement of security firm

NDV learned that the Urhobo youth wing issued a seven-day ultimatum to the management of the institution to disengage the security company, warning “Failure to comply would result in a massive protest by Urhobo youths and other legal means to compel the university authority to yield to their demand.”

In a letter addressed to the Vice Chancellor, Prof Victor Peretomode, signed by the president and secretary, Louis Anidi and Kelly Umukoro, respectively, the youths asserted the abduction was carried out in Campus III of the university with two operatives of the security outfit fingered by the police.

“We cannot afford to continue to endanger the lives of our students in Delta State University, Abraka anymore. It is the responsibility of any institution to protect her students when they are at school, but a situation whereby the same school that ought to protect the student becomes the same entity that exposes them to danger is very worrisome.

“There have been cases of ritual killings, kidnapping of staff and students within the campus with the murder of Elozino now revealing the source of strength of the perpetrators of these heinous crimes since a security personnel was involved,” the youths said.

 Criminal act, not ethnic matter – University spokesperson

However, the institution in response to the letter by the youths, accused them of falsehood and misrepresentation of facts, stressing that the victim was not abducted from the site III of the university.

Public Relations Officer of the university, Mr. Freeborn Aganbi, in a statement, described the incident as a “criminal act and not a subject of an ethnic group but a police affair.”  He stated that “the victim was never abducted from site III of the university.”

“The contract security staff, Onos, who is one of the abductors, was not on duty on Thursday, 15th November, 2018 when Elozino called him in the morning. In fact, Onos called his immediate boss, Uche that he would not be coming to work.

“All vehicles, including university official vehicles, entering or leaving any of the campuses of the university are always searched.  It was, therefore, not possible to carry Miss Elozino out of the university premises since she was not in site III of the campus on that day.

No ritual killing in DELSU before Elozino

“There had never been any ritual killing in the university before Miss Elozino. This, the petitioners can verify from records of the Divisional Police Station, Abraka and the insinuation that the university security system was negligent in its duty and the subsequent threat to create insecurity by the authors of the petitioners is totally uncalled for,” Aganbi added.