Growing security worries at UNIZIK

One of the duties of any university management is the safety of students and staff. However, delivering on this responsibility has become a major challenge to Nnamdi Azikiwe University as students lament the poor state of security in the school.

Commenting on the situation, a three hundred level student of mass communication who pleaded anonymity disclosed that residents of about ten hostels had been robbed and seven girls raped in these hostels in ifite Awka, the school’s host community. He said these armed robbers attacked students with guns, machetes and axes.

The student revealed that during each attack attempts to call on security proved abortive. The security only came in the morning to carry out “investigation” that would yield no result, the student said.

Also, another four hundred level student of Bio-Chemistry, Celestine Somto, described the security situation as deplorable and he called on students to be security conscious as the university management might not be able to protect the lives and properties of students.

Also, students who return home late especially the final year students and preliminary year students are victims of these hoodlums.

Some landlords of these hostels fail to employ security personnel to guard the buildings, leaving the safety of the residents at their risk.

One of the students who showed concern, Nneka Mmadu, said that girls who reside outside the university hostels face the risk of rape, being attacked daily and therefore called on the university management to look into it.

The University Chief Security Officer, Lawrence Okeke, in an interview with our correspondent, disclosed that students who reside outside the university are not under the protection of the school security.

He added that the issues of robbery does not occur within the campus but outside as a result of mixed classes of people living in the environment.

Yet, he said the vice-chancellor Joseph Ahaneku out of his goodwill extended the security coverage to students residing outside the university.

Another student decried the absence of enough residential buildings in the university which as a result encourages students to live outside the university.

A security personnel of in one of the hostels, Tochukwu Offiah who reacted to the robbery incident at ifite Area noted that these robberies were successful as a result of “poor and careless information”.