Police disperse protesting ASUU members with teargas in Abuja

 
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Abuja chapter, were on Wednesday prevented from staging a peaceful rally by a detachment of police personnel drafted from the Gwagwalada divisional station.
The lecturers had planned to stage a rally in continuation of the four-month-old strike as well as to sensitise the host community in Gwagwalada on the reasons for their prolonged strike.
When Daily Independent got to the campus on Wednesday, some of the police personnel had already placed a barricade on the road leading to the mini campus where the rally ought to have started from.
On noticing that the lecturers were adamant to carryout their rally, they used canisters to disperse the unionists.

Leader of the rally and ASUU's zonal chairman, Clement Chup, later addressed newsmen at the entrance of the university's Teaching Hospital located few miles away from the campus.
He said letters stating their intention had earlier been written to the FCT Commissioner of Police, adding that they were shocked by the interruption of the rather peaceful protest.
"We had gathered early this morning at the university gate for our proposed peaceful protest, but the police would not let us.
"They had already barricaded major entry points into the university, and prevented us from entering into the university.
"They snatched the banners from my hands and from other members and told us to leave, citing orders from above. In the midst of this confusion, they fired more than 10 canisters of teargas on us, and one of us that is asthmatic has been rushed to the hospital," he narrated.
Meanwhile the union has vowed to continue the industrial action, insisting that they will not accept half measures or any palliatives from government other than the full implementation of the 2009 agreement.
"I do not think that the onus is on us to shift ground but on those in a position to implement the contents of the 2009 agreement.
"The strike is total, comprehensive and indefinite," he stated