Newswatch (Lagos)
Fola Adekeye
31 July 2002
analysis
Mass acquisition of dangerous weapons by students is gradually turning our university campuses into theatres of war and bizarre killings
Gabriel Adewale, 27-year-old business administration student looked forward to his graduation from Lagos State University , LASU, in 2001 with optimism. Unfortunately, that was not to be. One day in 2001, Adewale, who was better known in LASU as "Gasby" was confronted by a group of students at a relaxation joint on campus and accused of being a cult member. He was arrested, summarily tried and sentenced to death. The death sentence was carried out instantly. He was tied to a stake and set ablaze.
The case of Gasby is not an isolated one. In 2001 alone, 13 students were executed in similar circumstances in LASU by student groups said to be opposed to cultism on campus. Fifty-six other students suspected of involvement in cult activities received lesser punishments. They were thoroughly and publicly whipped and then handed over to the police for prosecution.
But the anti-cult campaign at LASU has not been without reprisals. The murder of Babatunde Salau, leader of the institution's students' union government February 13 this year was the height of retaliatory killings by cultists, which has set the tone of war and the mass acquisition of arms to prosecute the war in LASU and in most Nigerian university campuses today .
Lagos State University is a tragic case of a higher institution of learning saturated with arms and ammunition, acquired mainly by cult members desirous to kill and maim and by non-cult members for self-protection.
People dread to discuss the atrocious activities of LASU cult groups even with journalists. That was the experience of Newswatch reporters in those communities last week. The Awori woman who simply gave her name as Yemisi of Ojo village told Newswatch that residents around the university lived in fear. She said more than four students and 12 innocent residents of the area had been shot dead in recent clashes involving cult members. "Landlords here fear to have LASU students in their houses because they have guns. You will not know they have guns until they want to fight you," she said.
Another Ojo resident, who accepted to speak to this magazine only on condition of anonymity for fear of cult attack, alleged that virtually every LASU student has a gun. "They all have guns. Where they keep the guns and how they get them remain a mystery to us. They have small guns, which they go around with always to fight rival cult groups. They all belong to one cult or the other. You know most of them are staying here. Both female and male students don't disclose to their mates where they are staying for security reasons. Their friendship is done on cult basis," he said.
Michael Odia, an artisan who lives at No. 4, Bello Street , Shogunle, told Newswatch that the problem of cultism in LASU had become a big source of worry to parents in Ojo. "It is a problem to us because most of us cannot tell if they have initiated our children here. You know these students live among us. We only appeal to the university authorities to provide accommodation facilities in the school for the students. LASU students have become bad influences to our children. It is that bad now," he said.
Odia advised parents who have children in LASU to pray without ceasing for their children. He said one of his nephews was initiated into cultism last year. "When he came back to his senses and decided to quit, the boy was shot by a cultist and prevented from exposing the group he joined," he told Newswatch.
In 1997, two rival cults clashed over a girl on LASU campus. The problem degenerated into a full-scale gun battle between them December 31. Motorists on the busy Lagos-Badagry Expressway watched in consternation as the gangs exchanged gunfire. Those involved in that bloody clash were children of highly placed people. Two of them were children of LASU lecturers. One of them was the son of a former minister in the Babangida administration.
Members of one of the cults that had mobilised from outside drove into the campus in posh cars belonging to their parents. After the clash, they drove out of the campus in a convoy of posh cars. One of them, who drove in his mother's car, could not escape with the others. He was caught and thoroughly beaten up and the car was burnt.
The university authorities reacted to the development in a rather feeble way. Though the identity of the students involved was known, no arrests were made. All the university authority did was to put up a notice, giving final warning to cult members in Lagos State University .
The notice said the attention of the institution's authority had been drawn to the acts of gangsterism by cult members. Those involved in these acts are urged to disengage immediately from membership of such ignoble and shameless cults. By this notice, they are given a final warning as the state security and university management have decided to begin "Operation flush out cult members."
But many people knew that authorities in LASU lacked the courage to decisively tackle the menace of the cultists. Most past vice-chancellors of the university could not go beyond verbal condemnations and threats. For fear of cult attacks, they swept under the carpets committee reports, which identified cults members on campus. (See box). Their lack of commitment worried Wole Soyinka, renowned playwright and 1986 Nobel Prize winner in literature. On July 7, last year, right on LASU campus, Soyinka accused vice -chancellors and principal officers of the nation's universities of using secret cults to settle scores. He consequently took university authorities to task, stressing that some of them were privy to the activities of these secret cult members. He called on relevant authorities and students to search their hearts, arguing: "If you decide that you will not tolerate the killer campus cults, you will do so. You even know them and where they store their arms, I implore you to join hands together to eradicate, without any sentiment, the killer campus cults among you."
Speaking at the 12th convocation of LASU, Soyinka said that the names of such officers had been given to various panels. He did not disclose the names, but accused the children of the elite of distorting the aims of confraternity in the country. According to Soyinka, campus violence was the product of ill-education, ill-manners, privileges, arrogance, impunity. "Why is it that students take guns, pour acid on one another, engaging hired killers to take care of other students? These are the questions people should ask, not describing all confraternity as secret cults. That is throwing out the baby with the bath water," he said.
Campus violence and mass killings of students by armed students are not limited to LASU. Late June this year, 15 students of the University of Nigeria , Nsukka, UNN, were killed in violent clashes involving rival cult groups. The notorious groups in UNN are the Buccaneers, Black Nationalists, Vikings, Black Axe, Black Beret, Black Cats, Campus Mafia and Daughters of Jezebel. In the ensuing confusion following the rampage, five targeted anti-cult campaigners were abducted and rough-handled.
A student who did not want to be named told Newswatch that the Vikings were on a vengeance mission for their members - Strauss and Wesley - who were reportedly killed by members of the Black Axe in the year 2000. Their operations lasted for four days. According to a 200-level sociology student who gave his name simply as Peter, the cultists armed to the teeth, engaged in house-to-house hunt for Black Axe members. He said Vikings planned to eliminate about 40 Black Axe members in that operation.
Paul Ugbo, a trader, told Newswatch that the cultists were armed with guns, knives and axes. He said they were bold enough to hold the entire areas around the campus to ransom throughout their operation. The police have since beefed up security in the university and environs to prevent a deterioration of the situation.
Nwachuku Egbochuku, Enugu State commissioner of police told Newswatch that two students arrested during the Nsukka cult war would soon be produced in court. Also, Popoola Taiwo, police area commander for Nsukka told Newswatch that the police had picked the bodies of 15 slain students and that the situation at the Nsukka campus had been put under control.
Ginigeme Mbanefoh, UNN vice-chancellor, said an administrative panel had been set up to unravel the cause of the incident and recommend possible solutions to the problem. "We will do whatever has to be done to ensure that peace returns to the campus," he told Newswatch.
Mbanefoh was shocked by the return of the killing cults in UNN. He said the university took the president's marching orders for the eradication of campus cults very seriously. "We took quite a number of measures and more than 400 students renounced their membership of cult. And there was evidence to prove that they had changed. But now that this has happened there are bound to be speculation. But if there are still people in our midst who did not really quit, we will do something about them," he said.
Mbanefoh gave assignments to parents. "I want parents to call their wards and ask them questions on the roles they played in what has just happened at Nsukka and call their children to order so we can have less problem here," he said.
There is an arms build-up also in higher institutions in Rivers and Imo states. In the University of Port Harcourt , for instance there has been continuous battles between the university authorities and the various cult groups. More than 20 students from the various cult groups have been handed over to the police for prosecution.
Nime Briggs, vice-chancellor of UNIPORT told Newswatch that the school authorities were working closely with the police to flush out cult members from the school. According to him, "the battle has been on and we are picking them one after the other and handing them over to the police." He said that guns and other dangerous weapons recovered from the cultists by the security department of the institution have been handed over to the police.
Newswatch learnt that some politicians sponsor the cult members in higher institutions for their own political benefits. According to security reports in Rivers State, the issue of eradicating cultism in higher institutions would not be an easy task. Some of the graduates who passed through the university are now working and are believed to be sponsoring the various cult groups to which they belonged during their school days.
A renowned cult member who graduated from Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, who preferred not to be named told Newswatch last week that the old boys of the school were supplying the weapons used by cult members in the institution. He said that the guns, knives, axes and other weapons they used during his days in the institution were supplied by members who graduated before them. He said that some big men in the corridors of power also supply guns to their sons and daughters in higher institutions. "When their sons and daughters are arrested, police cannot take action because of the positions of their parents," he said.
In the Rivers State Polytechnic, Bori, about 10 students were killed in gun battles between two rival cult groups in the past four months.
In the University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, police have recovered some guns from students believed to be cult members. Last Monday, three students died in the university as a result of a clash between some cult groups, involving free use of arms. Ireju Brasua, the police public relations officer, Rivers State command, told Newswatch that they have not been able to identify the source of the guns used by the cultists in that operation. She said the police got to know of the clashes between the cult groups in the university on July 17. She blamed the security department in the various higher institutions in the country for not doing their jobs very well. "It is expected that the security departments in the universities are in a position to furnish the police with information but they do not do that," she said.
In the Imo State University, Owerri, cult members have also been on rampage. Chinedu Oko, the police public relations officer, Imo State police command told Newswatch that the police had arrested so many student cult members in the past few months. He said that guns were also recovered from them. Oko said that the police were investigating the sources of the guns used by the cultists.
In the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri, and the Federal University of Technology, FUTO, Owerri, some student cultists have also been arrested and they are now undergoing interrogation. Oko told Newswatch that they would be charged to court once investigation is concluded by the police.
Ondo State Polytechnic, Owo, was also shut down indefinitely last week after four students were set ablaze in renewed armed clashes between two rival cults. Sebastian Henijirika, Ondo State police commissioner confirmed the killings. Newswatch learnt that the clash was caused by the alleged kidnap of a female student of a rival cult group, which later mobilised its members for a commando-styled reprisal attacks. The burnt cult students, it was learnt, appeared on the school campus armed with dangerous weapons apparently to unleash further terror. As the cultists arrived, reports said, other students who identified them confronted and overpowered them. When the cultists could not offer satisfactory answers to questions asked them, they were set ablaze by the irate mob.
Bola Ogundewole, the rector of the polytechnic was not available at press time but he had recently described secret cult menace as a national problem. He said the institution would do its best to curb the menace, adding that the students' cadet corps would be encouraged and motivated to wage war against campus cultism in the school.
Three students of the University of Jos were killed and one wounded in a clash between two rival cult groups - the Black Axe and the Vikings - using sophisticated arms in September last year. The police mistook the cult members, who embarked on indiscriminate shooting for armed robbers and killed two of them. Aliyu Yusuf, then the police public relations officer, Plateau State police command, confirmed the incident and said investigation was still being conducted into it. Newswatch learnt that 17 cult groups exist in this university alone but the university authorities have intensified war against cultism in UNIJOS.
Sources told Newswatch in Jos that university authorities were worried about the level of conflicts involving the use of arms by students. At the main entrance of the Bauchi Road campus of the university is a huge billboard, depicting a human skull, with the bold inscription, "CULTISM IS EVIL, REJECT IT." Several of these signboards are mounted at various strategic points in and around the campus of the university as well as in the students' hostels.
This does not seem to have helped much. Steve Otowo, the institution's public relations officer, told Newswatch in Jos that it was part of the measures taken by the institution to curb the activities of cultism and the quantity of arms in the hands of students in the university. He said the federal government was also disturbed by the activities of cultists and that the ministry of education had been involved in organising seminars and lectures aimed at arresting the situation.
Otowo said there were no recent violent cult crisis. "They have gone underground. The last two cases of cult activities took place late last year in a hotel in the town, far away from the precincts of the university," he told Newswatch.
Cult incidences have remained intractable on campuses because of their inter-campus networks. When a particular cult group needs to carry out an operation in its own campus, it would use its "brother" members from other institutions who will come with the full complements of their arms in other institutions. This strategy often obscures identification of assailants. The attacks are also more brutal because they are carried out without sympathy. Going by police accounts, it explains, in part, why security operatives have not found killers of prominent lecturers and students on the campuses.
Another reason given for the intractability of cult groups on campuses has to do with the profile of their members. Usually they are children of highly placed people. Just an example. The cult "lord" that was beaten and hacked to death in UNILAG late last year was the son of a former chief justice of the federation. Investigations after he was killed revealed that he had gone on a hit mission to another university at the request of a "brother" cult group.
He brought back to Lagos the eyes of his victims as proof that he had a successful outing. He later raped a UNILAG student and openly boasted of his murderous exploits to scare away sympathisers of the lady. Unknown to him, the lady had reported him to cult group. The following day, 20 cult members went for him. He was trapped in the Henry Carr Hall of the university along with some of his cult mates. The resultant clash witnessed the free use of sophisticated guns more than in the commando war films. Avengers' bullets got the better parts of the boastful "lord" and two of his members who were in their final year.
Cult members clashed on the mini campus of the University of Ilorin, UNILORIN, in September last year. A police officer's son studying political science in the university reportedly used his father's private car in that operation. Tunde Maruf Obalola, a business administration student of the Kwara State Polytechnic was killed in the clash. The officer's son has not been interrogated over this allegation.
Lukman Bisi Omotosho, UNILORIN student union president, recently exposed discrepancies in police handling of the case. "It is unfortunate in Nigeria that we are operating two laws: one for the poor and the other for the rich. This is a country where the son of the poor will have to pay for an offence committed by the rich," he complained.
Like many of Nigeria's social problems, the campaign against cultism and the use of arms and ammunition by students has failed to achieve expected results. In 1999, soon after the present civilian administration came into office, it launched a frontal attack on cultism on the nation's university campuses. The gruesome murder of seven students of the Obafemi Awolowo University , OAU, July 10, 1999 led President Olusegun Obasanjo to constitute a seven-member judicial commission headed by Okoi Itam, a justice, October 18 that year. Other members of the commission were Ray Ekpu, chief executive officer, Newswatch Communications Limited; C.O. Okonkwo, SAN; Jadesola Akande, Ambrose Akpanika, Yusuf Ali SAN; and N.C.J. Egbedi.
Federal government upheld the commission's recommendations in part and sacked Wale Omole, then OAU vice-chancellor. The commission condemned Omole's high-handed handling of students' union election and the subsequent arrest and trial of suspected cults in that year. It noted that "although he might have believed that he was acting in the best interest of the institution, he seemed to have become high-handed in the handling of some administrative matters, especially within the last couple of years of his tenure.
The commission said the causes of perennial incidents of cult clashes in OAU are issues relating to leadership tussle, "especially when elections are perceived to have been rigged or leadership is imposed." In the struggle for supremacy, it further noted, there is always an accentuation of the retaliatory powers. "The struggle for supremacy also involves territorial ambition which is not satisfied until the competing group has been completely subdued." This is usually achieved through arm acquisition.
The commission strongly urged the federal government to give adequate financial assistance to federal and state tertiary institutions "to exterminate the cult scourge from all tertiary institutions." It also advised federal government to set up a Special Task Force of the Police Force and a Special Intelligence Unit "specifically to identify cults and cultism in the nation's tertiary institutions.
The commission also enjoined parents and guardians to monitor their children more closely. It also recommended that newly appointed heads of tertiary institutions and elected student leaders should be exposed to short management skills acquisition programmes before or soon after they assumed office.
In line with the commission's recommendation, the federal government gave financial grants to all the federal universities to exterminate cults and cultism. The recipients included the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Lagos and the University of Benin, which got N10 million each. Others, because they fall in the group generally regarded as second generation universities got less than the first generation universities. They are Universities of Ilorin, Jos and Bayero University, Kano, which received N7 million each, while the third generation universities received N5 million each. The special grants was to enable them install security and street lights on campuses and put in place other security devices that would help them contain cult activities on their campuses.
Students were also encouraged to organise anti-cult associations, which were to encourage cult members to renounce cult membership. The associations were also to liaise with their institutions' authorities to rehabilitate "liberated" cult members and make them responsible members of the university community.
The campaign led to initial successes. In virtually all the university campuses and in other higher institutions of learning, there were such renunciations and denunciations of cult memberships, most of which were video-taped and showed on state and national television stations to encourage others to do same.
But the successes were temporary. Sooner than later, cult members re-grouped and even began recruiting new members. These groups are behind violent killings and armed banditry going on today in and around major university campuses in the country.
Cult activities provide the major reason for the growing arms build-up in the campuses of the nation's tertiary institutions. Cults groups in these institutions are virtually in competition for supremacy, which is proved and guaranteed through arms superiority. The students, therefore, go to every length to acquire arms. And most of the inter-cult crises on the campus are used as means for confirming this superiority.
In most campuses, cult members maintain arms depots - the location of which is a guarded secret of each cult group. Even campus security officials hardly get to know. And even when they finally get to know, they turn a blind eye for fear of reprisals.
At LASU, the student cult groups are armed to the teeth and are dreaded by university officials as well as members of the Ojo community where most of the student reside off-campus. Said Abisogun Leigh, LASU vice-chancellor: "By the time I took over, the students (I can say 90 percent) were calling the shots. They were running a parallel government. Anything they wanted to do they did without any recourse to any authorities. They were selling university lands. They were running their businesses. They were running buses. They were running radio stations. They were making noise anytime they wanted. They could bring anything on campus. It was near anarchy backed by the force of arms. And of course, for the office of the vice-chancellor there was no respect."
Leigh said that most officials of LASU Student's Union Government had no regard for people within and outside the university gates. Leigh also confirmed the looting of neighbourhood petrol stations by the students. "The particular incident that brought the whole thing to a head was the hijacking and kidnapping of the wife of one of the petrol station owners along Iba Road. The immediate past student union executive went with about 20 danfos that they hijacked on the road and they were in that petrol station, taking fuel free of charge. Unfortunately, on this day, it was the wife of the petrol station owner that was standing in for her husband. The husband had been treating such incidences in the past with kid gloves. But on this day, it was the madam and the behaviour was strange to her; that people would just sack the petrol station, disturb the normal customers, seize the pumps, seize the takings of the petrol attendants and so on. She now came out from the office and asked who are these people behaving like ruffians, like criminals. And that enraged the students and they went for the fuel pumps and pumped petrol all over the place. When they were leaving the woman shouted that these youths must be armed robbers. Then they came back and seized her, took her to LASU campus and detained her from about 1.00 p.m until about 6.00 p.m. My security told me that they even had to raise about N6, 000 to bail the lady out from the student arcade, which is better known as a detention camps."
He said when public protests had become unbearable, the university council decided to act. "What we did was to write to each petrol station dealer, informing them that from that point on, no student of LASU was authorised to stop and take any product without paying for it. Anybody who refused to do so should be classified as an armed robber. Being a student of LASU does not confer the permission to take people's property without paying for it. So, we just found that the thing went down drastically," he said.
In another incident, Leigh said the student government attacked a church in Festac in search of its pastor whom they said maltreated their lady friend. "They moved out in full force on one Monday in their "Aluta Power" again. They looked for the man of God in the church but they couldn't find him. They found two other persons - a man and a woman - praying in the church. They grabbed them and brought them to their arcade and kept them there for three nights and three days. It is a law on our campus that no body should sleep in any office. The security got to know of the detained people when they heard them praying in a hide-out inside the student arcade." Even the university's security officials had no access to the heavily fortified arcade.
The vice-chancellor could not deny that students were using their arcade for illegitimate practices. "Anywhere you have this kind of arcade, you will have cannabis and other hard drugs being sold. It is a rule that no alcohol should be sold on campus with the only exception of the staff quarters, which is far, far in. But in the arcade area and the surrounding kiosks and shops you know that alcohol flows there freely," he said.
Many LASU students are said to be in possession of firearms. Leigh said intelligence reports had confirmed it. The arcade is out of bounds to the authority, to many people. There are rooms in the student arcade that you cannot approach, you cannot inspect, it is very likely such things as arms are there. I believe it is not only the arcade. There may be other spots on the campus were these different bad groups hide their weapons. We, as administrators of the university, are also confounded. I am personally embarrassed whenever police pick up somebody from outside and is said to be 300-level student of LASU, and that they found a sophisticated weapon on him and so on. I believe that all these should be stopped. The arcade was not made for storing weapons, sharp cutlasses and other dangerous things. It was meant to be a place where students can debate, play some indoor games, teach themselves one or two useful things. We don't inspect the place so I won't be able to confirm directly what you are saying but we all rely on intelligence reports. But if the ease with which these guns are being shot anytime there is crisis on this campus is to be used as a yardstick, then they must be having the guns there. Although I must confess that they could be bringing them in and out because they don't subject themselves to body search by the security," he said.
A stop-and-check measure at the university gate may not rid LASU of gun-carrying students. Notorious students still come into the campus through manned gates. Armed students often come into the university, according to security reports, through collapsed fences. The university land at the Iba end of the campus is swampy and as such the university fences there pose little threat to the marauders who have consistently pulled them down and established a bush path into the campus.
"I don't believe we can totally stop marauders from breaking our fences because anytime they are going from Ojo cantonment in the wee hours of the night, they would just break our fence at Iba Road, enter the campus, break it again to burst into Iba Estate where they are going to rob. And then they would come back again into the campus. Even then, there are broken fences near the student arcade because I understand that people come from outside and enter the arcade to buy some terrible things and go back. We cannot stop the marauders from breaking our fences," Leigh said.
The death of Salau and the escalation of violence in LASU have brought Leigh and the students on a collision course. Mid last month, Leigh declared a comprehensive onslaught on notorious students and joints in LASU. And two weeks ago, the university's governing council confirmed the expulsion of 182 students, 22 of whom were members of past and present Students' Union Government, SUG. According to the university, all the students were guilty of "acts unbecoming of university students such as armed robbery, gangsterism, cultism, assault, rape, examination malpractice, gun-possession, dangerous driving and gross misconduct."
Twenty-two of them have gone to court to challenge their expulsion. In a suit filed May 15, at an Ikeja high court, they asked the court to quash the decision, describing it as "oppressive, illegal, unjust, null and void and of no effect whatsoever."
Suing the university are: Adedeji Gbenga, Ashimi Ahmed, Enigbokan Bolanle, Fola Oloko, Ibrahim Adepeju, Ifeshile Gbolade, Lakanse Bolaji, Odusote Ayo, Obianwuma Terry, Olowu Olufemi Babajide, Segun Fashola and Samuel Olukorede. Others are Adedigba Modupe, Yomi Alao, Lawal O.I., Dayo Soyoye, a.k.a. D-One; Kazeem Adewale Omololu, Adegbuyi Oluwole, Ilori Babatunde, Buraimoh Valentine, Raheem Abayomi and Lamina Kunle.
The students said their purported expulsion was borne out of malice, as the acting vice -chancellor that masterminded the decision could not condone the insistence of the students union government's quest for a reasonable hike in school fees. "In a nutshell, the union's opposition to the exorbitant fee is aimed at preventing forfeiture of the right of Lagosians to receive education, which made the authorities to perceive us as critics and as a result, accused us of being cultists, armed robbers, etc and rusticated and expelled us without allowing us to face a panel to defend ourselves. He has infringed on our rights, destroyed our names, reputation and integrity," the students said in a recent press release.
Consequently, the Students' Union Government passed a "Fatnwa" (Arabic word for death sentence) on key officials of the university last week. Top on the death roll are Leigh, acting vice-chancellor of the university, Idowu Sobowale, the state commissioner for education; Shiyanbola Oyeweso and Dapo Thomas, both senior lecturers in the university. Ahmed Sanmi, dean of students' affairs and Toyin Oshun, the university registrar got less sentences. The SUG called for their immediate removal "for peace, development and justice in LASU."
The vice-chancellor was said to have caused the planned demolition of the student arcade, the death of Fatiu Akesode, his immediate predecessor, the sacking of six "efficient" professors and the continued closure of the university. "Prof Leigh's draconian acts, and thirst for power led to the death of former vice-chancellor, late Prof. Fatiu Akesode, sacking of six efficient professors and expulsion of 22 student union leaders Finally, Prof. Leigh and his cabal of sycophants and mediocre backing him within the state and university community keep advising him to close down the school for one year but we are students of history and we want to remind our enemies and detractors that our past leaders have resisted bad policies of authority for two years in spite of the closure of LASU," they warned. The SUG called for immediate and unconditional reinstatement of all its expelled leaders, failure which there will be a showdown.
The question is, how do cult students acquire sophisticated guns? Newswatch learnt that cult groups are said to be acquiring guns through the contribution of their members. Such guns, it was further learnt, are usually kept with the groups' "lords" who direct shooting operations on campuses. Cult members reportedly rent guns for their operations. "Cult members and armed robbers are the same. They rent arms and ammunition mostly through the same routes used by armed robbers. After using the guns, they return them and pay "solidarity fees," explained a police source.
Additional reports by Anza Philips, Psaro Yornamue, Geoffrey Ekenna, Mathias Oko, Favour Okereke, Annette Edo, Betty Onuh, Felix Umoru, Eno Reuben and Rosemary Udoh.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2002 Newswatch. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
