From Teryima Ajijah, Jos
Yet-to-be-identified gunmen Monday night shot a male student of the Plateau State University (PLASU), Bokkos and whisked away 3 female students.
As a result of the ugly development, students have been protesting at the entrance of the university, and have paralysed academic activities.
Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), PLASU chapter, Dr Bentse Pamson, confirmed this to newsmen in Jos during an interview on Tuesday.
However, according to Dr Pamson, the female students earlier kidnapped escaped from their abductors, and rejoined their colleagues.
The male student who was shot by the gunmen is receiving treatment in an undisclosed hospital, though sources said he is stable as at press time.
The ASUU chairperson said the Monday night incident at PLASU was the third, he informed that the second incident, claimed the life of the victim.
Dr Pamson, who is a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics, noted sadly that the host community to the university is not connected to electricity, therefore, hoodlums take advantage of the dark environment in perpetrating evil in the community.
The ASUU chairperson who lamented that the university community is under threat by suspected herdsmen, said Plateau state government had promised to stage 15 armed civil defense officers at the institution as part of the agreement reached with ASUU before the recent strike was suspended, however, the state government is yet to fulfill the agreement eight weeks after resumption from the industrial action.
The university don also revealed that government is yet to pay the 70 million naira arrears owed his union, which was part of the reason it embarked on an industrial action recently.
The PLASU academic union chairman told journalists that the state university has no governing council, although, government had promised to inaugurate it, immediately after the ASUU strike was suspended, but to no avail.
Dr Pamson stressed further that should Plateau state government fail to honour the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ASUU, it might resume it Industrial action.
He appealed to the protesting students to be calm and not to take the law into their hands.
