Five days after they were locked up by officials of the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON), the 344 female students of the Providence High School, Independence layout, Enugu, are still trapped in their school premises, following the refusal of the Company to unseal their school gates.
This is as management of the school has raised alarm over the safety of the “detained” female students, insisting yesterday that their lives were under serious threat.
AMCON officials allegedly led by one Nick Omeye had on Thursday, January 21 at about 5.30pm in company with over 40 armed police officers locked up entrances to the boarding school following a court order it obtained in 2016, empowering it to take possession of the school’s facilities.
On Monday however, AMCON had denied “detaining” the students, stressing that reports that it locked up the premises of the school were “spewed mischief and half truths regarding the real issues about the enforcement exercise at the school”.
Its Head of Corporate Communication, Jude Nwauzor, stated that the gates of the school were “still open and activities ongoing”, adding that the Company could not have “locked up a school offering social services”. He stated that what the officials did was to place the normal notice of possession of the property
But as at 5.00pm when Journalists visited the school premises on Monday, the entire entrances were still under lock and key, even as the management of the school decried the “continuous incarceration of the students and their teachers by AMCON”.
It was also discovered that a water tanker meant to supply water to the school could not access the premises, even as food items purchased by the management for the students were being moved in through an emergency walkway.
Proprietress of the school, Mrs Elizabeth Onwuagha, told reporters on Monday that AMCON was being deceitful and wondered what they would benefit by lying to the public over the forceful seizure of the school’s facilities with its students.
“I cannot understand why anybody would say that this place is not under lock and key. It is most unfortunate that people will say that white is black. It is sad. Let them (AMCON) tell the world how they invaded this place. As I am talking to you, today January 25, 2021, at 5.10 pm, the gates are still under lock and key by AMCON. There is no way we can combat any emergence. Human beings are here. From 21st Jan when these gates were locked till today, Jan 25, the gates are still locked up with students inside the school premises”, she said
She cited two occasions where the female students living in the school dormitory had to run from the school into the streets for safety over a fire incident at the school’s plant house and when teargas was shut in the streets to wade off protesters.
“If we have a repeat of such an emergency, there will be a stampede. We have been apprehensive since Thursday the 21st, should anything happen. If you put yourself in our position, I wonder what you will do. The teachers cannot leave because it is their responsibility to protect the children. AMCON has told a brazen lie’, she said.
Mrs Onwuagha stated that apart from beating up one of the teachers, for asking them why they would invade the school premises to possess it with formal notice, “their phones and other gadgets were smashed”, adding that “a tanker driver that supplies water to the school and his conductor were thoroughly beaten by the security operatives”.
She continued: “This is not how to live in the 21st century. You mete out brutality on a people who are without arms for asking questions on why their premises were being invaded. This place is a school that is running on charity. The kind of money they said was borrowed by the man who gave us this facility is not in this place. We live from hand to mouth. We generate money to pay salaries and take care of the students. That is all. The person that gave us this place never told us he borrowed money from any bank with it.
“He died in 2007 and we came here in 1996. We did not know of any court matter until 2016, when AMCON came here with an interlocutory order of court asking it to possess this place. As at the time, we came into this place, there were two uncompleted buildings but today, we have added six more”
She appealed to the federal Ministry of education, Ministry of Finance and well meaning Nigerians to intervene and save the 344 female students, stressing that, “if there is a stampede now, we will have casualties”.
