UNIJOS declares lecture-free day over
students’ death
Authorities of the University of Jos have
declared Friday as a lecture-free day in honour
of students, who lost their lives and those
injured in the Tuesday’s bomb blasts in Jos.
A statement by the Deputy Registrar,
Information and Communication, Mr. Steve
Otowo, stated that the period would also be
used to conduct a headcount of all the
students in the university to ascertain the
number of those involved in the unfortunate
incident..
He said the Vice Chancellor had commiserated
with the families of the victims of the bomb
blast.
Meanwhile, the authorities are still searching
for the corpses of five of the seven students of
Medical Laboratory Science department, who
were caught up in the blast.
Acting President of the Students Union
Government, Williams Lar, told our
correspondent in an interview that out of the
five students, only the corpses of two –
Michael Ogbole and Francisca Nwafor, had
been identified and their parents notified.
He added that the bodies of Wungak Monday,
Millicent Yusuf, Doris Gebunem, Vivian
Chiamka Obilo and Lydia Komolafe, had not
been found.
He said another student, who had graduated
from the university and undergoing clearance,
Joy Mako, was currently on admission at Our
Lady of Apostle Hospital, with Jimlong Dayol
of Architecture Department and Jumai Audu, a
worker in the Consultancy Department of
UNIJOS.
Lar added that another students of Pharmacy
Department, identified as at Tessy, had also
not been seen since the incident happened.
He said, ” By law, we can only declare the two
students as dead and five others missing. But
that is just to satisfy the requirements of the
law because a lot of people were burnt beyond
recognition and since these students moved in
a group, we can simply conclude that they are
dead.”
Lar said the parents of all the affected
students had been notified and they had
arrived Jos to join in the search.
A friend of the seven students described them
as front benchers, who were serious with their
studies.
“They are God fearing and first class materials
and had always moved together. So when we
saw the bodies of two of them, we can
conclude that the rest were burnt beyond
recognition, says the friend, who identified
herself simply as Dinchi.
“They were all brilliant students , Mike is the
class pastor while Dolapo was the assistant
class rep. During lectures, they all sit in the
front row and they read together. The school
and the entire department of Medical
Laboratory Science will miss them. They
didn’t deserve to die in that way.”
Culled from PUNCH
