Rukuba Killings: ASUU Condemns Regular Attacks On Students, Staff Of UNIJOS

During the most recent civil disturbance in Jos, the University of Jos chapter of the Academic Personnel Union of Universities (ASUU) has criticized what it calls “repeated attacks and killings of university students and staff.”

In a statement denouncing recent violence in Jos and surrounds, Lazarus Maigoro, the university’s ASUU chairman, said attacks on UNIJOS students for violence that had nothing to do with the institution were “sad and terrible.”

“The university administration has over the years made overtures to host communities in terms of undergraduate admissions and staff employment.

“Yet our students and staff are killed at the slightest provocation, however far the epicentre of the crisis from the institution,” Mr Maigoro said.

The statement said the incessant attacks on students and staff every time there was a crisis in and around Jos had impacted negatively on the University’s academic calendar.

“We have suffered untold damages in relation to loss of lives and property, in addition to the regular suspension of academic activities each time there is security breach in Jos.

“As a union, we have tried to understand how the university community is always at the receiving end of each crisis in Jos,” the chapter chairman said.

Worried that the continuous suspension of academic activities and closure of the school would pose setback to the students’ education, Mr Maigoro said UNIJOS was a citadel of learning housing people of different ethnic and religious affiliations and so, “should be spared anytime there is breach of security in other parts of Jos.”