From Godwin Tsa Abuja
The family of Starry-Joshua Mustapha Okemebeose, a student of Medicine and Surgery at St. Gregory University Uturu, Abia State, has petitioned the National Universities Commission (NUC), demanding sanction against the school over alleged inhuman treatment amounting to human rights violations of their son by the school’s security personnel.
In the petition the family disclosed that the incident took place on December 12, 2024, when Okemebeose, a student of Medicine and Surgery at the University, went out of the hostel to collect his phone at the repair shop, near the school canteen.
Besides, Okemebeose’s family, in a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Gregory University Uturu, has given a seven-day ultimatum to the school to pay damages of N2billion for the breach of their son’s fundamental rights and deprivation of his right to be in school like his fellow students, or face legal action.
Meanwhile, when contacted on the matter through a phone call by our reporter, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Kalu Uche confirmed the incident but declined to speak on it.
Rather, Uche, a Professor of Mass Communication said he was instructed by his lawyer, Prof. Mike Ozekhome SAN not to speak to the press on the issue.
“My dear Sun Newspaper, you know I am a journalist and a Professor of Mass Communication. I have been prohibited by my lawyer Prof.Mike Ozekhome from speaking to any journalist on any interview in relation to this petition concerning my school. So I am sorry to disappoint you.
“Any matter we have in school is before the Nigeria Police for investigation, so I am not speaking on any such matter now please”, Prof. Uche explained.
But a petition addressed to the NUC Director General and dated January 21, 2025 on behalf of the family, a legal practitioner, Orduen Mark Feese, told the NUC that one of the school’s security personnel accosted the medical student alleging that he was a criminal.
The lawyer stated that all explanation by Okemebeose that he was a student and was out to collect his phone at the repair shop fell on deaf ears.
Feese further alleged that the security personnel called on other persons who beat up Okemebeose and dragged him to the security post.
Specifically, the petitioner submitted that he was physically tortured, humiliated and locked-up for hours, before being removed from the school and made to undergo inhuman treatment in the hands of the authorities of Gregory University, Uturu without just cause.
Okemebeose wrote that he was not involved in any wrong doings or was he confronted with any case of misconduct and afforded an opportunity of defending himself before he was purportedly so inhumanly treated.
The petition was copied to the National Human Rights Commission,
Public Complaints Commission, Minister of Education, and the International Association of Universities.
Among other rights abuses, the student averred that without investigating the issue and notwithstanding that he was not caught stealing anything, the security bound him with ropes hands backwards with legs.
“He was displayed in the tied condition at the entrance point of the University, in front of the security post for hours for passers by to see.
“Even when fellow students identified him as a student, the security still did not release him.
“He was later dragged into the security cell above the security office and locked there still tied for 18 hours.
The lawyer stated that efforts by parent of the student to get the University to explain what had transpired after the boy was released from the cell on December 13, 2024, proved abortive as the DVC Academics, and the Chief Security Officer of the school allegedly poured invectives on the parent.
Apart from being sent out of the school in the night, the student, according to the petition, missed studies from then till date.
“It is obvious that the school authorities having forcefully removed our client from the school are not ready to let him back to continue his studies.
“More so, with the hostility displayed against him, he has lost trust in his been fairly treated even where he is retained, the petitioner wrote.