MAUTECH Yola Students Religious Crisis

By: Anonymous Student

February 4th 2018 is a date no student of Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola (formerly Federal University of Technology) will forget in a hurry.

It is worth stating that on the 29th of January 2018, SUG elections took place and Christians (or at least non-muslims) won all the posts except one: the post of Director of Socials. As pathetic as it sounds, elections in my school are based on religion; both Christians and Muslims are told who to vote in their respective churches and mosques.

It was claimed that during an online engagement about two weeks ago, a 'Christian boy' supposedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad. They (Muslim students) had demanded that the boy be expelled (a senate meeting was held to this effect), but the Vice Chancellor of the school insisted that the school had no business in online dabbles. The said provoker had been in hiding for weeks as there were open threats to his life. The claims on the media are that only the latter (insult to the Prophet) caused the unrest, I do not agree with these claims having witnessed it first-hand.  I think information was withheld deliberately to avoid fueling an already volatile situation, considering how seriously they take insults to the prophet.

By 6pm of the 4th of February, I  was in my hostel (Nana Asmau hostel) trying to nap before I go to read, when I heard screaming, running into rooms and shutting of doors with such force the whole building (two storeys of solid concrete) shook. At first I assumed it was one of those nonsense tantrums that was common with girls in my hostel, but when the noise persisted, I rushed out to assess things for myself. That's when chants of "Allahu Akbar" reached us. We (myself and other 'brave' students) rushed to the front of our hostel and saw quite a number of people carrying clubs and machetes marching as they shouted. From where we stood in front of the hostel we heard they went into one of our lecture theatres (LT 1&2) where Christian fellowship was holding, stoned 'worshippers' and dragged one boy out. The boy was said to beaten to stupor with blood oozing and his legs broken. They set ablaze instruments worth millions of naira in the lecture theatre store, the fire eventually escalated and engulfed the entire building. Lecture theatres 5&6 (SMIT LT) were also vandalised.

Burnt Lecture Theater

Musical Instruments

By 8:00pm same day after nearly two hours of unrest and panicking, we still didn't see a single security agent insight. As a matter of fact, the one previously stationed in our hostel ran away. We watched from afar as fire burned surrounding building. When the Muslim youths were matching past our hostel around 8:15pm, one girl said something insulting to them and they started stoning at us. Glasses were broken, our windows shattered, some people were seriously wounded and we had to shut the hostel from within.

A mosque was also vandalized, and there were two versions of the story. One version alleged that the Imam presiding over Oba Adetona mosque tried to prevent them(the Muslim students) from rioting but they started stoning at the mosque and broke windows (I should add that I heard this from a Muslim). The other version had it that the Christian students carried out reprisal attacks.

Around 9:30pm or thereabouts same day, military presence was finally noticed, but rumours had it that they hadn't received permission to act, so the vandalism continued. The rioting Muslim students then went to the mosque to regroup (allegedly).

By 2:00am of the 5th February, they continued to vandalize. Dozens of students were stabbed and one of the school security was allegedly hospitalized. .

By 6:00am the following morning being  5th of February, when we got up to go round and assess the damage, we were told to our faces by some Muslim students that 'this' was just the beginning. Myself and other passers-by were called 'arne' which is a Hausa word for infidel (basically any non-muslim). They kept trying to start another riot and kept walking around with clubs.

Currently, the school has been shut down indefinitely and all students forced to leave before 2pm of the 5th of Febuary.  Tensions are still very high.