The Management of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, has debunked the position of the Civil Society Organizations regarding the arrest of two OAU student activists who peacefully protested what they considered the anti-poor policies of the Minister at the Oduduwa Hall of the university on June 5, 2025.
In separate statements issued by the Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neo-liberal Attacks (ANSA) and the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), they claimed that the Department of State Services (DSS), attached to Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, arrested two OAU students, namely Oladepo Joshua and Ejike Kelechi, following a protest against the Minister’s visit to the institution.
“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of our comrades. We urge the Nigerian public, the Great Ife Students’ Union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, other progressive unions, civil society groups, the media, and all defenders of justice to rise in condemnation of this repression,” said ANSA’s Deputy National Coordinator, Ikechukwu John, in a statement sent to The PUNCH.
The Education Rights Campaign’s National Mobilisation Officer, Adaramoye Michael, also stated, “The arrest of these two student activists is condemnable, and it shows the despotism obtainable in tertiary institutions today.”
The Students’ Union at the university said it had yet to obtain full details of the incident.
“As of this time, I just heard rumors. At this particular event, I was not in attendance, and I don’t have any detailed report yet,” the union’s spokesperson, Aka Daniel, said in a chat with our correspondent.
A video obtained by Citizen Rapporteur revealed how the students staged a peaceful demonstration by displaying a cardboard at the Oduduwa Hall on campus while Wike was delivering his keynote speech.
Eyewitnesses relayed that the protest was met with swift intervention by DSS operatives, who apprehended the students and transported them to an undisclosed location.
The circumstances surrounding the arrests remain unclear, and efforts to obtain official statements from the university authorities and the DSS have been unsuccessful as of the time of this report.
Meanwhile, Citizen Rapporteur recalls that Wike visited the university on Thursday to speak on the topic “Nigeria of Our Dreams” at the Oduduwa Hall.
The management of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Thursday, however, denied claims that two students were arrested for protesting the presence of the Minister on campus.
A report by PUNCH Online states that Wike was delivering the Distinguished Personality Lecture at the university’s Oduduwa Hall on the topic “Nigeria of Our Dreams.”
It was gathered that the two students, Oladepo Joshua and Ejike Kelechi, raised placards inside the hall, calling on the minister to “compensate those whose houses you demolished.”
In a video seen by our correspondent, the duo was subsequently whisked out of the hall by security officials while the minister was speaking.
Multiple sources on campus informed our correspondent that the students were taken to the institution’s security base known as ‘Floor 0’ in the Senate Building.
“They were in Oduduwa Hall for the event Wike came for. We presently don’t know their whereabouts,” a student who gave her name simply as Gift for fear of victimization, said.
“I’m just getting to Floor 0. They were taken to Floor 0 together with security details attached to Wike. They wanted to take them away, but I learned security operatives appealed to Wike’s security officials not to take them away,” another source said.
When contacted, the university’s Public Relations Officer, Abiodun Olarewaju, stated that while everyone has the right to protest, the minority should not disrupt what the majority enjoys.
“Everybody has a right to protest, and the minority, microscopic minorities, should not disrupt what the overwhelming majority allows.
“So, they were not arrested; they were only escorted out of the Oduduwa Hall. We didn’t want the situation to escalate, because some of their colleagues were the ones who accosted them.
“You know, when about 20 students descended on two students, something could happen. So, the security operatives there just apprehended the two students and took them out of the hall,” the PRO said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Olarewaju, who anchored the program, added that all he knew was that security officials “rescued them (the students) from being beaten by their colleagues.”
“I mean, how can just two students, only two students, decide to disrupt what other students said they liked? So, to prevent their colleagues from beating them or injuring them, that was why our security personnel just took them out of the hall,” he added.
