News — Nigera

Founded on October 4, 1962, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) is a public university located in Zaria, Kaduna State in northern Nigeria. With over 35,000 students, it is the largest university in sub-Saharan Africa and the second largest on the African continent after the University of Cairo in Egypt. The institution was originally founded as the University of Northern Nigeria but was renamed in honor of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, who was the first premier of northern Nigeria and the university’s first chancellor. Bello was murdered by Army officers on January 15, 1966 during Nigeria’s first military coup.

The university has two main campuses, the Samaru and Kongo campus. The Samaru campus is home to the administrative offices, sciences, social sciences, arts and languages, education and research facilities. The Kongo campus houses the Faculties of Law and Administration, which consists of accounting, business administration, local government and development studies, and public administration departments. The university also has the ABU Teaching Hospital, which is one of the largest training hospitals in Nigeria.

Currently, the university covers a land area of 7,000 hectares and encompasses twelve academic faculties, a postgraduate school and 82 academic departments. It also has five institutes, six specialized centers, a Division of Agricultural Colleges, a demonstration secondary school, a primary school and extension and consultancy services, which provide a variety of services to the university and the wider society. While most students are from northern Nigeria, the university attracts students from all over Africa. There are about 1,400 academic and research staff and 5,000 support staff working at ABU.

Ahmadu Bello University has numerous notable alumni including the current vice president of Nigeria, Namadi Sambo. Its philosophy/motto is, “The first duty of every university is the search for and the spread of knowledge and the establishment of the nation.”

Nigerian protesters demanding an end to police brutality returned to the streets on Wednesday, saying they were unconvinced by the creation of a new police unit and a pledge not to use violence against demonstrators.

Protesters have staged daily marches nationwide for a week, calling for an overhaul of police forces. Police have responded to the demonstrations with beatings, tear gas and gunfire, which human rights group Amnesty International said had killed at least 10 people.

The protests have prompted a raft of announcements. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a police unit that demonstrators have long accused of beatings, killings and extortion, was officially disbanded on Sunday.

On Tuesday, police agreed to stop using force against protesters. They also announced the formation of a new unit, the Special Weapons and Tactics team (SWAT), to "fill the gaps" left by the disbanded SARS.

But protesters said on Wednesday they feared the new unit will simply be a rebranded version of SARS.

Hundreds gathered on Wednesday in the capital Abuja, as well as megacity Lagos and Warri -- both in the south -- to press their calls for police reforms.

"What they do is... give them new uniforms, call them a different name, but they are still the same people in these police forces," said blogger Folu Oyefeso, in Lagos.

Demonstrators in Lagos, who gathered despite heavy rain, sang, danced and chanted. Many held placards, including one that read "Stop killing our dreamers. #EndSARS now."

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in a statement on Wednesday, urged protesters to wind down demonstrations, saying that the gridlock caused in recent days had disrupted businesses still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.

"People are just coming back to businesses. It would be unfair for those businesses not to be able to get back on their feet again," he said.

Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, has written to the president of Nigeria requesting the pardon of a 13-year-old boy sentenced to 10 years in prison for blasphemy, Cywinski has tweeted.

"As the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, that commemorates the victims and preserves the remains of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity," Cywinski wrote in the letter dated September 25.

A copy of the letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the matter of 13-year-old Omar Farouk was posted on the Auschwitz museum's Twitter account. In it, the museum director declared he was willing to serve part of the boy's sentence. "(...) if it turns out that the words of this child absolutely require 120 months of imprisonment, and even you are not able to change that, I suggest that in place of the child, 120 adult volunteers from all over the world, gathered by us - myself personally among them - should each serve a month in a Nigerian prison," he wrote.

Cywinski wrote that the boy "Should not be subjected to the loss of the entirety of his youth, be deprived of opportunities, and stigmatized physically, emotionally, and educationally for the rest of his life," arguing that Farouk was too young to be held responsible for his words.

The 13-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison with forced hard labour because during a fight with a classmate at school he used words considered blasphemy in reference to Allah. In 12 Nigerian states, mostly in the north of the country where sharia law is in force, blasphemy can be punished with the death sentence, despite the Nigerian government declaring a withdrawal from the punishment four years ago.

Farouk's case has drawn protests globally. On September 16, UNICEF's representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, filed an official protest with the country's president, pointing out that Nigeria was a signatory to chid rights treaties that were breached by the sentence.