Retired UNIPORT Staff Laments, ‘Students I Served For 35yrs Have Turned Round To Destroy All I Laboured For’

Rivers, a state that prides itself as the Treasure Base of the nation, has been battling flood disasters in three local government areas before it received with shock the news of the grisly murder of four students of the University of Port Harcourt by a lynch mob.

The people of Omuokiri Aluu in Ikwerre Local Government Area, one of the host communities of the tertiary institution, ohave been on the defensive since then about the circumstances that led to the lynching of the undergraduates.

The four students – Chidiaka Biringa, Kelechi Ugonna, Lloyd Toku and Tekena Erikena- were branded thieves, brutalised and set ablaze by some members of the community for allegedly stealing a laptop computer and a BlackBerry phone.

The incident, which occurred on Oct. 5, 2012, has attracted condemnation from the international community. Not a few believe that the jungle justice meted to the UNIPORT Four gave out those behind the act as uncivilised, barbaric, cruel, inconsiderate and heartless.

Though many stories have been peddled about the circumstances that led to the killing of the students, the one that appears to be logical was that the students were forcibly held by some indigenes of Omuokiri Aluucommunity, after a student purportedly owing one of the slain students raised a false alarm that sent community members coming for Erikena, Ugonna, Toku and Biringa’s jugular.

For over two hours, the lynch mob stripped the students and beat them with cudgels, while a huge crowd urged them on.

The gory episode went on even as one bloodthirsty man was seen in a video tape taking it upon himself to hit the obviously defenceless and almost motionless undergraduates until they began to gasp for breath.

Not satisfied, the man gave the students the final blows before mobilising his fellow executioners to set them ablaze.

Surprisingly, a group of policemen that came from Isiokpo could not save the  situation. By the time operatives of the Joint Task Force and some parents of the students came to the scene of what many termed a disgraceful act by a community, three of the undergraduates had died. The remaining one that was gasping for breath died before the JTF could get him to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.

Satisfied that the students were dead, people of Omuokiri Aluu community went about their normal business, giving the impression that they did nothing wrong. Last Sunday, the State Police Command swung into action and arrested 13, including a community leader, who allegedly endorsed the killing of the four students.

It was at that point that the people of Aluu realised that they goofed by lynching the UNIPORT Four. Since the arrest, community members have been leaving their houses in droves in order to avoid being arrested by the police.