Bauchi varsity postpones resumption till January 7

The management of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, has postponed students’ resumption to January 7, 2024.

PUNCH Online had reported that a final year Geology student, Joseph Agabaidu, according to multiple sources on the campus, was stabbed by some assailants while trying to steal his mobile phone.

But the Bauchi State Police Command, in a statement signed and made available to journalists on Wednesday by its Public Relations Officer, Ahmed Wakil, a Superintendent of Police, said that the deceased tried to retrieve his girlfriend’s bag from some assailants who snatched it from her when they stabbed him on the side of his chest and he later died while on admission at the ATBU Teaching Hospital.

Sources said he was returning to his lodge situated around the Yelwan Tudu market in the Yelwa area, a suburb of the Bauchi metropolis, on Saturday when he was attacked and was rushed to the hospital for medical treatment but could not survive the severe injuries from the knife.

The incident sparked a protest among students of the school who came out in their numbers at the Yelwa campus to express their anger at the inadequate security in and around the campus and to call attention of the management and the government.

Following the protest, the management, in a statement signed by the Deputy Registrar Academic, Fatima Abdullahi, shut down the school for an initial one-week period and directed students to vacate the campus immediately because the protest carried out by “miscreants” disrupted the peace being enjoyed on the campus.

But the ATBU Director of Information and Public Relations, Zailani Bappa, in a statement  made available to journalists on Friday, said that the students will now resume on January 7, 2024.

He said, “The Senate of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, has extended the date for resumption of undergraduate students of the university to January 7, 2024.

“In an emergency meeting held at the Senate Chamber in Gubi Campus, the Senate resolved that the one-week closure of the university be extended to January 7, 2024.

“The university management earlier announced the closure of the university to all undergraduate students for an initial period of one week, from December 4-10, 2023, to avert possible breakdown of law and order on the two campuses of Yelwa and Gubi.

“This followed an upheaval by some aggrieved students after the demise of one of their colleagues who was reportedly attacked by unknown assailants in Yelwan Ngas, a suburb of Bauchi town which led to his untimely death.”