Ex-Militants attack UNIPORT, rape female students * Police Arrest 10 Suspects

THE police in Rivers State say they have arrested some 10 ex-militants suspected to be the master minds of the alleged last weekend attack on the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT).

Police Commissioner, Bala Hassan, who made this known on Wednesday, said his command was on top of the situation, pointing out that the suspects will soon be charged to court.

Already, students of the uiversity have called for the relocation of the ex-militants’ camp from the Social Rehabilitation Camp Aluu, beside their institution campus in Port Harcourt, to a new area because of the untold hazard the camp is causing their academic activities.

The students who carried placards with various inscriptions such as “they raped our students, stole our laptops and other valuables”, said the ex-militants that are camped in Aluu, near the Uniport campus, raped their students and made them to live in fear in their campus.

The students’ leader Mr Amadi Solomon, who spoke on behalf of the students, said they are demanding the immediate relocation of the ex-militants camp from their school environment, because of the harm they have caused the students.

Solomon said the protest was to register their displeasure over the attitude of the ex-militants that humiliate the students, as well as dispossess them of their valuables.

He explained that the ex-militants’ protest on Monday paralysed academic activities at the institution as both students and lecturers were humiliated by the lawless ex-militants.

Responding on behalf of the Rivers State Government, the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry Mr Ogbonna Nwuke, said the government shares in the pain of the students and apologized to the students and the University community for what happened on Monday during the protest of the ex-militants.

Nwuke said the present state government believes in the rule of law and assured that the state government would investigate the incidence and ensure that culprits are brought to book.

He appealed to the students to go back to school, emphasizing that the state government would ensure their safety as security operatives have been directed to ensure that no such scenario happens again.

The commissioner said that despite the state government’s support for the amnesty programme, it would not allow the ex-militants to take laws into their hands, pointing out that the state government joins the law-abiding ex-militants in their anguish over unpaid allowances, stressing however that they should be patient with the authorities.

He also warned ex-militants not accredited to be in the Aluu Camp to stay away from the area to avoid unpleasant consequences, while assuring the law abiding ex-militants of government support to achieve total re-integration