None of our students booed Keyamo when he said ‘Nigerians will beg for return of disbanded SARS’ – Nile University counters

The management of Nile University has countered claim of Minister of state for labour, Festus Keyamo being booed for saying ‘Nigerians will beg for return of disbanded SARS’ during a recent lecture at the institution. 

Providing a context for the comment, the manangement said the Minister who was invited to deliver a paper on “Challenges of Global Security and the Implications for International Human Rights Law: An African Perspective”, stated that the recent upsurge of crimes recorded in some parts Nigeria is not unconnected with the disbandment of SARS without a ready replacement and the release of hardened criminals in Correctional Centres in some parts of the country.

According to Nile University, Keyamo who noted that people who protest over police brutality in the US never called for disbandment of police force but for erring officers to be punished, submitted that it may reach a point when we may begin to clamour for the return of SARS to help fight these violent crimes that are returning to our society as the regular Police is neither equipped nor trained to fight these dare-devil robbers.

Describing the lecture which was attended by 300 students, the institution’s Vice Chancellor and some Professors as “thought-provoking and intellectual”, Nile University’s management added that there was occasional applause throughout the lecture and no single person booed the Minister. 

The statement read; 

PRESS RELEASE BY REPRESENTATIVE OF POST-GRADUATE STUDENTS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF NILE UNIVERSITY, ABUJA.

RE: BUHARI’S MINISTER, KEYAMO AT UNIVERSITY LECTURE SAYS NIGERIANS WILL BEG FOR RETURN OF DISBANDED SARS, STUDENTS MOCK HIM

Our attention have been drawn to an online publication by Saharareporters with the above caption which was widely circulated yesterday.

As organizers of the lecture we are totally embarrassed by the falsity of this report that the Minister was booed by students during the said lecture. Even the attached video by SaharaReporters did not support the story. For the avoidance of doubt, nothing like that or even close to that happened.

For the records, the Minister was invited to deliver a paper on “Challenges of Global Security and the Implications for International Human Rights Law: An African Perspective.” Part of the points he made during the lecture was that the recent upsurge of crimes recorded in some parts Nigeria is not unconnected with the disbandment of SARS without a READY replacement and the release of hardened criminals in Correctional Centres in some parts of the country. He went further to say, that what we needed to do as a nation was to insist on punishment for the erring SARS operatives and not a disbandment of the Unit. He cited examples of the wave of robberies in the country during the eras of Armed Robbers like Lawrence Anini and Ishola Oyenusi and other similar incidents that led to the birth of SARS. He feared that we may be returning to that era because we threw the baby away with the bath water.

He noted how some Police officers in the US have also been involved in extra judicial killings of Blacks, but nobody, including the Blacks that protested, called for the disbandment of those patrol units or any other unit of the US Police as a solution to this. They have always insisted on bringing the erring officers to book. It was in this context he submitted that it may reach a point when we may begin to clamour for the return of SARS to help fight these violent crimes that are returning to our society as the regular Police is neither equipped nor trained to fight these dare-devil robbers. The lecture was thought-provoking and intellectual.

The hall for the lecture was filled with about 300 students that attended alongside the Vice-Chancellor and many Professors. There was occasional applause throughout the lecture and no single person booed the Minister. Very many students had their phones out and were recording THROUGHOUT the lecture and if any such incident happened, you can be sure the video of the boos would have been trending by now. We challenge SaharaReporters to produce any such video from the lecture. Many students took photographs with the Minister after the lecture before he departed.

As a citadel of learning, we welcome all shades of ideas and opinions in our environment and we are not skewed towards any particular kind of politics or opinions. That is the beauty of education.

Saharareporters should go and play its politics elsewhere (if any) and leave us to entertain all shades of opinions on our campus without deriding anyone with a particular opinion.

We do not know where and how the story-teller who fed SaharaReporters the story came up with those tales by moonlight.

Thank you.

Chubado Babbi Tijjani

+ 2347040428769

For and on behalf of the other PhD students of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Nile University Abuja.