Osun State Protesting OAU students rescued by school security – Management

The management of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, has denied that two students who protested while the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, was delivering a lecture were arrested by security operatives.

Wike, while delivering the 2025 Distinguished Personality Lecture of the University held inside Oduduwa Hall, the two students carried placards and shouted in the middle of the event, an action which attracted the wrath of fellow students in the hall.

Students, who dressed like law students in the hall, descended on the two protesters, seized the placards and started maltreating them before school security team intervened.

The security team escorted the two protesting students outside the hall as the minister delivered his lecture unperturbed.

However, sources on the campus disclosed that the two students were taken to the security base of the institution known as ‘Floor O’ in the Senate Building of the school.

“They were in Oduduwa Hall for the event Wike came for. We presently don’t know their whereabouts,” the source said.

When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the institution, Abiodun Olarewaju, said the students were rescued by the security operatives from their colleagues who were part of the event.

“You were in the hall, you see that the two students raised placards and were not disturbed but their shout attracted other students in the hall who were about to descend on them but for the timely intervention of the school security team.

“They were rescued from their colleagues and escorted out to avert further harassment on the protesters. I can authoritatively tell you that they were not arrested. They have the right to protest and they have exercised it.

“But other students too have rights and to avoid a fight, the security team had to intervene and calm the situation,” he said.