Ali must go

Colonel Ahmadu Ali

In 1978 University Students across the length and breadth of Nigeria boycotted lectures  in protest against Obj"s Military Government.

Their grouse was that the Federal Government had increased School Fees.

Their demand was that the new fees be  reversed or they would boycott their lectures as a first line of protest.

On the first day of the boycott there were no incidents.

The next day, trouble broke out. The gate of the University of Lagos was barricaded by the Nigerian Police, following a tip off that the students were to embark on a street protest.

At that time the Nigerian Students were united under the auspices of National Union of Nigerian Students ( NUNS). United as the Students were, they were in full cooperation with Nigerian Radical Left.

The students tried to resist the siege and in the process many students died.

The next day, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria got its own turn in the form of a siege by Soldiers of the Nigerian army. In the process five lives were lost and so was equally lost a Presidential ambition of the Vice Chancellor, Ango Abdulahi who sought to keep the records straight by saying that only four students died and in it insensitivity was read for daring to use the word ONLY. Interestingly each time Ango Abdulahi came forward for public office, that Ghost of ONLY pushes him off. How sad.

Ango Abdulahi

Another dimension of the protest was that it spilled into the streets becoming an all Comer's affair.

The protest got its name from the then Federal Commissioner for Education before they became Minister, Col Ahmadu Ali, a medical doctor who in his University days was an active member of NUNS.

According to Ali, he said he ran into the protesters at the National Theatre, Iganmu and called some of them aside. Of course they did not know him, he was driving himself in a Honda Accord car, and asked them what Ali did, that they were saying that he must go? They replied that, they did not know but he must go. He then said, he advised them to avoid people like himself with small cars and go after people with bigger cars before driving off.

That explains why street protests are dangerous.