Protesting lecturers, including professors, were yesterday beaten to pulp by hoodlums along Airport Road in Benin City, the Edo State capital, while protesting the destruction of buildings housing their colleagues in the area.

Trouble started when some men, armed with guns, confronted the lecturers, telling them to leave the area and claiming to be police officers.

When they (lecturers) demanded for their ID cards, the men descended on them with stones, sticks and sand, breaking the windscreens of the buses and cars of the lecturers. About 10 lecturers, including professors, were injured.

It was gathered that 18 buildings were destroyed, allegedly on the orders of the state government. The buildings, located in choice areas in the GRA, were destroyed while the occupants were still in them.

One of the victims, immediate past Vice-Chancellor of UNIBEN, Professor Osayuki Oshodin, who spoke with journalists, accused the state government of demolishing his official residence while in office.

Oshodin said the demolition affected four buildings on Edo Osagie Street, including his, while his personal belongings, including books, assorted publications, electronic gadgets, furniture, bank documents and certificates, were affected in the process.

He said the incident began at about 2pm Monday, while he was in the house, adding: “I was here. They first of all came in the morning. Then over 2,000 thugs came and started destroying the houses. They destroyed my library there. All my books right from primary school were destroyed but I have packed the remnants away from there.”

Areas affected in the demolition include buildings on Government House Road, Golf Road, Edo-Osagie Street and Airport Road.

The demolition came in the wake of an appeal filed by the university challenging the ruling of a state high court in the suit by the Edo State Government over a large expanse of land which the defunct Mid-West State Government allegedly donated to the university in the seventies.

The state government won a prayer in the state high court that the property in dispute belongs to it but no sooner had judgement been delivered than thugs went on rampage, invaded the plots where academic staffers are residing and drove them out.

The protesting members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of the university have lamented the resort to thuggery by state government officials in a bid to enforce a court ruling over the disputed plot of land.

The union in a statement by its chairman, Dr. Anthony Monye-Emina, called on the law enforcement agencies to intervene in the matter to save academic staffers as defenceless citizens from being attacked in their fatherland.

Reacting to the allegations, Attorney General to the government, Barrister Henry Idahagbon, said the state government merely carried out the judgment passed December 16, that the state government should take possession of their property.

Idahagbon stressed that the court said they should take possession immediately, noting, “Since they don’t want to leave, we decided that we should break down the perimeter fence and punch holes in the buildings, to make the place uninhabitable for the occupants.”

•Adapted from Newswatch Times.