Education Rights Campaign (ERC) has lamented the death of a student activist and 2020 graduate, Nurudeen Alowonle, popularly known as Omomeewa, some hours after he was invited to face a disciplinary panel set up by the Lagos State University.
Alowonle was shot dead around LASU U-turn, Iba road, Lagos on Wednesday, according to a release by the LASU Students’ Union on Thursday.
ERC in a statement by its Deputy National Coordinator, Ogunjimi Isaac; and National Mobilisation Officer, Michael Lenin said it was wrong for anybody to say that Omomeewa was killed by armed robbers, and so, demanded a probe into the activist’s death.
Part of the statement read: “it must be placed on record that he was brutally shot to death by yet to be identified men in front of the Lagos State University on the evening of Wednesday 18 August 2021 when he came to the campus on the invitation of LASU Students Disciplinary Panel to appear for the umpteenth time in a contrived case of admission to racketeering.
“The incident is being presented by the Police as a robbery gone wrong. However, we think it is too early to draw this conclusion. Comrade Omomeewa was shot while walking to take a bus home with Comrade Majekodunmi – a University’s worker and member of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, who is serving as a staff adviser of the Education Rights Campaign.
“We hereby demand immediate the arrest and prosecution of Omomeewa’s killers. We also call for the setting up a probe panel to unravel the real motive behind the attack including, if any, the suspected complicity of the Lagos State University administration – which had invited him to the campus to yet again answer to false charges at the Students Disciplinary Panel about a year after he had graduated from the University.”
“Comrade Omomeewa graduated from LASU in 2020 from the Faculty of Education. However, his result and certificate were seized on the excuse that he had a pending case at the disciplinary panel and consequently he was not allowed to proceed for National Youth Service.
“We hold that Comrade Omomeewa would not have met his untimely death if he had not been hounded by the management of the Lagos State University which has subjected him to varying levels of victimization over the past three years because of his principled opposition to the management’s anti-student and anti-worker policies.
“The University management under the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Fagbohun, had instituted the case against him in October 2019. This was in retribution for his role in students’ struggles on the campus and particularly his solidarity with the workers’ unions on the campus.
“He took permission from work to appear before the panel with his lawyer, Barrister Nurudeen Temilola Yusuf (Optimist) on Wednesday, August 18, and was asked to return in the next two weeks.
“The disciplinary panel had sat very perfunctorily, postponed sitings several times for no genuine reason, and refused to call key witnesses thereby unnecessarily dragging the case for over two years from 2019 till 2021.”