Students of the popular University of Benin in southern Nigeria, on Thursday, threw caution to the winds and engaged soldiers at the school premises in a brawl over cash withdrawal at one of the bank’s Automated Teller Machines in the campus.
Nigerians have been going through serious pains and hardship in the past two weeks following a cash crunch and scarcity of Naira notes due to a new cashless policy and redesign of the country’s currency by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Trouble, according to witnesses, started when some soldiers attempted to jump the queue at the ATM stand but were resisted by the students who had waited on the queue for their turn to withdraw money.
One of the students who spoke with journalists on the condition of anonymity, said that the resistance of the students to the soldiers jumping the queue got the military men infuriated and they pounced on the students who retaliated, leading to the clash.
“On Wednesday, some soldiers had come to the ATM gallery on campus and harassed the students. They even asked the students who challenged them to lie on the ground,” the student said.
“But today (Thursday) when they came again and wanted to do the same thing, the students resisted and that led to the clash.”
The witness said while the arguments was ongoing between the students and the military men, the Chief Security Officer of the institution tried to intervene but was assaulted by the soldiers.
“The development got the students aggrieved and they took matters into their hands. They blocked vehicular movement on routes to and from the school which resulted in a gridlock.
“It took the intervention of some spirited Nigerians and the Divisional Police Officer Ugbowo Division to appease the irate students to allow vehicular movements around the axis,” he added.
The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Lilian Salami, who appealed to the students for calm in a statement on Friday, described the incident as unfortunate and called for calm.
“The unfortunate incident of the clash between some students of our University and soldiers on Thursday 2nd February, resulting from alleged resistance of students to the soldiers’ attempt to jump ATM queue on campus has been brought under control and the management of the University is in discussions with the hierarchy of the S&T for amicable resolution,“ the statement reads.