Ogun State Police Command, on Saturday, threatened to deal decisively with students planning protest in the state over the hike in fuel prices and electricity tariffs.
The students under the aegis of the National Association of Nigerians Students (NANS) Southwest Zone D, had given the federal government five days ultimatum, which expires on Sunday, to reverse the hike in the prices of fuel and electricity tariff.
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The students vowed to embark on massive protest across southwest states if the government failed to reverse its decision.
Reacting to the plan to stage a protest, the command in a statement by its spokesman, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said it had received an intelligence report that some disgruntled elements were bent on disturbing public peace in some parts of the state, starting from next week Monday.
Oyeyemi warned the students to desist from the action, saying the command would not allow any group to hold residents to ransom.
Oyeyemi claimed that the students were planning to block all major highways, “including the Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Benin Expressways, recruit miscreants, street urchins, hoodlums, expelled, suspended and perpetual students over-running their courses at tertiary institutions in Ogun State and other states from the South-West, to swell their ranks and ensure their desired objective of spreading violence in the State, beginning from Monday 14th September, is achieved.
“The decision by any group of students to embark on protest over recent increase in fuel prices and electricity tariffs is unwarranted and therefore unacceptable to the Ogun State Police Command as it was only on the 8th of September, that is in less than a week now, that NANS executives carried out a protest in Abeokuta over the same issues.
“Consequently, the deliberate and selfishly designed violence-oriented protest planned for Monday 14th September, 2020, is not approved by the Ogun state Police Command, and will be resisted vehemently.
“No group will be allowed to perpetually hold the entire good people of Ogun state in perpetual fear of violence and harm to their persons and property.
“Olawale and his group are hereby advised in their own interest to drop their plan to block any highway in the state, and thereby cause confusion, disturbances and public apprehension.
“The law is not on their side on this.”
The PPRO added that officers and men of the command have consequently been put on red alert in view of alleged threat.
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