By Emma Una
PANDEMONIUM broke out at the Federal Government Girls’ College (FGGC), Calabar when neighbouring Department of State Service, DSS, operatives stormed the school to confront teachers of the college after one of them disciplined a student.
The two federal institutions, DSS and the Federal Government Girls’ College, which are within shouting distance of each other along Goodluck Jonathan Bypass, Calabar, had been good neighbours with the DSS providing security to the school, which regularly comes under attack by hoodlums seeking to rape, rob and brutalise the girls in the school.
The relationship between the two was always warm and cozy until the event of penultimate Thursday when a knife was put in-between the two to sharply divide them, leaving behind chaos and rancor.
The sad event started when operatives of DSS allegedly stormed the school in response to a call by a colleague, names withheld, whose niece, a student, was allegedly flogged by a teacher, Mr Owai Owai, leaving lacerations on her hands and back.
The marks on the niece’s body, made the DSS official furious and she decided to take the picture of the girl with her phone. Meanwhile, she was said to have been accosted by some of the FGGC teachers who felt offended that she came into the school without permission to take picture of the student. The DSS official was reportedly assaulted and her dress torn, prompting her to call for rescue from her colleagues who stormed the place.
Narrating the incident, Mr Owai Owai, the Civic Education Teacher at the centre of the storm, said that after the morning assembly, he was on his way to teach.
Owai explained that as he passed through SS 3 class, he saw junior students sweeping the class and he asked who brought them to sweep the class and one of the students, Amanda, said she was.
He then decided to punish the entire class for flouting his instruction not to force junior students to sweep their class by giving each of the erring students two strokes of the cane.
“But one of the students grabbed me by the collar of my shirt which prompted me to flog her more and, thereafter, she went outside and made a phone call to her aunt, said to be a DSS official. I was in the SS 2 class teaching when a woman accompanied by a man walked in and grabbed the cane I was holding and began to flog me with it in front of the students and, when some of my colleagues who saw what was happening, rushed to rescue me, they were also attacked by the strangers”, Owai said.
According to him, immediately after he was rescued from his attackers, he ran into his office for refuge from where he observed the woman make a phone call and, soon three vans drove into the school compound and the operatives jumped out and rushed to the class where he was attacked. He explained that the teachers who had gathered in the class were attacked by the DSS men.
“When they jumped out of the vans, they started shouting, `where is the teacher’, and the woman who did not know I had escaped mistakenly pointed at another teacher, Mr. Ndarake, and the DSS men went after him. One of the DSS men even brought out his rifle and pointed at Ndarake while another shouted ‘shoot him but the man with the rifle fired into the air, grabbed him and tried to force him into one of the van but he resisted, prompting the DSS man to wrestle him to the ground and began using the butt of his rifle on his head and neck.”.
Another teacher of the college, Mr Mbeson Emmanuel, said the DSS operatives shot sporadically into the air. Then any teacher who tried to take pictures of the scene was attacked and his or her phone seized by them.
“About six of us were attacked for trying to take pictures of the incident,. The DSS attackers seized phone and binocular while another teacher, Mrs Anne Agba, had her phone and N80,000 naira that was in her handbag stolen and she was severely manhandled”.
He said FGGC the security guard, who locked the gate to stop the DSS vans from entering the school was hit several times on the head and neck with the butt of a rifle causing him to bleed profusely.
“Asuquo Ndarake has been taken to hospital because he was hit on the head and neck with the butt of a rifle because he locked the gate to stop the vans from leaving the school premises and they shot at the gate and destroyed the padlock and drove out”, Mbeson said.
Reacting, Mr. Fubara Duke, Cross River State Director of DSS told Sunday Vanguard that the incident was a case of mistaken identity. He stated that on Wednesday some hoodlums went to the school to beat up a teacher who had flogged one of the students. On Thursday morning when the teachers saw the DSS operative they thought she was one of the hoodlums and pounced on her, beat her up and tore her clothes”, Duke said.
“There was no gun shot. My men only went there on the invitation of the school authorities and the teachers mistook my personnel who went there to sort out why her daughter was beaten by a teacher leaving her body with laceration as one of the hoodlums who went there to beat up a teacher on Wednesday”. He said he has asked the school administration to fish out the teachers who attacked the DSS lady to face appropriate punishment”
On Tuesday, teachers from the school took to the streets of Calabar to protest the alleged attack.
They visited the state House of Assembly complex carrying placards which bore inscriptions such as, “We need justice without delay” , “DSS stop using teachers as a bait”, “Teachers are agents of development”, We are not terrorists, stop the use of force on us”.
The teachers, led by the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress ,TUC, in Cross River State, Comrade Clarkson Otu, said the protest became necessary to ensure that perpetrators of the attack on the FGGC teachers were brought to book.
“We came here to register our grievances so that investigation can be carried out and those DSS personnel who invaded the school, if found wanting, can be brought to book.
“We need justice and perpetrators of the sordid act should be made to accaount for their action”.
The Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo, assured the protesters that their message would be passed to the appropriate quarters.
The Speaker, represented by the Clerk of the state Assembly, Elder Ekpeyong Bassey, said,”We will certainly do justice to the issue and ensure that justice is done.”
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