According to a statement by the Registrar of the University, Rebecca Okojie, the closure followed the tragic trailer accident at Felele city centre on Monday, 17th February 2025, that claimed the lives of five students of the institution and the failed attempts to calm protesting students.
Students on Wednesday reportedly barricaded the university gate despite interventions from the State Government and frantic efforts and appeals by the University Management for calm.
In the statement, the Vice-Chancellor, after due consultation with Management has decided on behalf of the Senate, that both campuses of the University be closed down indefinitely within one hour of the release of the circular.
The school directed students to vacate the campuses on or before noon today, 20th February 2025.
The protesting students had threatened to block the Abuja-Lagos Highway if the Federal Government failed to stop the incessant killing of their colleagues by trucks.
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Student Union Government, SUG, President Benjamin Timothy, said the students were tired of mourning their colleagues, adding that the five students killed on Monday have brought the number to 12 students killed by trucks in avoidable accidents in just a space of two months.
Timothy said that the peaceful demonstration staged on Wednesday was a signal to the authorities concerned to do something drastic about the continuous massacre of innocent students along the highway, or they would barricade the highway.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, in Kogi, Gomina Ahmed-Kabir, decried the inaction of the federal and state governments over the continuous killing of students on the highway.
Ahmed-Kabir said the authorities should not blame the students if they blocked the highway to drive home their demands to put a stop to the killings.
Responding, the Security Adviser to Governor Usman Ododo, retired Commodore Jerry Omodara, pleaded with the protesting students to give the government more time to address the issue.
He said that Ododo had already constituted a committee to look into the matter within less than 24 hours of Monday’s ugly incident.