Okposi Killings: USOSA condemns action, urges FG to tackle attacks
An Umbrella of the 104 Unity schools in Nigeria, Unity School Old Students Association (USOSA), has condemned the recent abduction and killing of two students of Federal Government College (FGC) Okposi in Ebonyi state, urging government to address the underlying reasons for the increasing frequency of fatal attacks on students of unity schools across the […]
An Umbrella of the 104 Unity schools in Nigeria, Unity School Old Students Association (USOSA), has condemned the recent abduction and killing of two students of Federal Government College (FGC) Okposi in Ebonyi state, urging government to address the underlying reasons for the increasing frequency of fatal attacks on students of unity schools across the country.
It said federal government should ensure that the killers of the two students are brought to book.
The two students, Tochukwu Ene and Chukwuemeka Ugwu were said to be among the 270 JSS 3 students of FGC Okposi who had finished their final paper and had went into the community to barb their hair on Friday, May 20th.
The students were reportedly abducted and killed with their remains located on the Atta Stream behind Romic Hotel in Okposi on Sunday, 22
The President General of USOSA, Prof Chidi Odinkalu speaking at a briefing in Abuja condemned the act, saying there is no justification for the gruesome end to the young and very promising lives.
Prof Odinaklu said: “We send our children to school so they can become greater, dream bigger, fly higher and become equipped to replace us and lead our country. We don’t send them to school to return in body bags, killed for harmless pursuit of knowledge.”
What manner of person would abduct and kill innocent children? he asked, saying “this is a question we must confront as a nation until we trap the killers of these children .”
The association however noted that the killing of Tochukwu and Chukwuemeka is the 3rd recent killings in Unity schools in Nigeria.
Recalled that in 2013, three students of FGC Kano were killed and in 2014, about 49 students of FGC Bunu Yadi in Yobe state were killed by Boko Haram element. In addition to that, four Unity schools in Monguno and Lassa in Borno, Potiskum in Yobe state and Michika in Adamawa state were closed for fears of fatal attacks on the school.
USOSA maintained that no one has been held accountable for the attacks and insist that this pattern will not be repeated in these most recent killings.
While commiserating with the families of the students and entire FGC community, the presidents said, the association will create appropriate incentives for persons that have information on what happened to the students to come forward with information that will help to apprehend the killers. “If a bounty is needed we will create one,” he added.