Some youths suspected to be thugs on Monday laid siege to some parts of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife and attack the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, and other management team members of the university.
The youths, who were armed with dangerous weapons including guns and cutlasses, prevented the VC and his management team from accessing some parts of the university land from the Parakin axis, shooting sporadically and brandishing dangerous weapons.
The thugs also attacked and harassed the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the University, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju, and reporters, threatening to kill them.
The thugs were believed to have been hired by land grabbers who want to fraudulent claim some parts of the university land.
Ogunmodede described the attack as unfortunate and noted that the federal government would not cede an inch of the university’s land to anyone.
He said the newly completed hostel in the axis where the land grabbers wanted to claim could not be occupied by students since it was completed because of the threat pose to the lives of the students by the land grabbers.
The VC said: “I don’t want to lose any of our students.
“We are short of accommodation for our students but it’s not worth the lives of our students.
“You can see that it is only God that saved us today. You can see the shooting and all sorts of things but we thank God that we all survived it.
“We will try as much as possible to continue to maintain peace because the university can not continue to exist without the community.
“We will try as much as possible to continue to reach a perfect understanding with the community.
“We have been doing it. We have succeeded over many years and we will continue to do it.
“You can see that we are in a very serious situation as far as OAU land is concerned.”