More on Nigerian school murder
From the Christian News Today
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Chris Oluwasesin, a teacher at
Government Secondary School of Gandu was murdered by Muslim students
at the school, along with outside Islamic extremists. They beat,
stoned, and clubbed her to death, then burned her corpse.
As a supervisor of a class writing a final examination on Islamic
Religious knowledge on that day, Oluwasesin was responsible for
ensuring that students strictly kept rules and to prevent mischief
in the hall, which had become common among cheating students.
Oluwasesin had collected papers, books and bags before the exam in
the all-girls class, in accordance with school procedures to prevent
cheating, and dropped the materials in front of the class.
Soon after the bags collected by Oluwasesin were dropped in front of
the class, one of the girls in the class began to cry. She told her
colleagues that she had a copy of the Quran in her bag, that
Oluwasesin touched the bag, and that by doing so she had desecrated
the Quran, since she was a Christian.
Soon after the student raised this alarm, other students in class
began to shout “Allahu Akbar [God is great].”
It was at this point that I was attracted to the riotous scene in
that class, and I then rushed there, said fellow teacher Musa,
who said he witnessed the murder of Oluwasesin by the Muslim
students and extremists. How could a teacher know that that there
was a copy of the Quran in a student’s bag if this was not pointed
out to her?
In the raucous confusion, Oluwasesin
was rushed out of class to the principal’s office. By the time Musa had
rejoined the principal and other staff members, he said, the entire
school was engulfed in uproar. Muslim extremists from outside the school
rushed in to join in the unrest.
They destroyed school property and were demanding that Oluwasesin
musn to them to be stoned to death, Musa said. When we
could not give in by releasing Oluwasesin to them, they started stoning
us.
While we were thinking of ways to take Oluwasesin out of the school,
the Muslims broke into the principal’s office and dragged her out. The
principal rushed there to save her as they clubbed her with an iron on
the head and blood was gushing out from the wounded side of the head. He
was pleading that they should not kill her, but they were insisting that
she must be killed.”
The principal succeeded in getting Oluwasesin up to the school gate.
There was a house near the gate, and he dragged her into the house, but
the rioting Muslims went into the house and dragged her out again. This
time, they clubbed her to death, brought old mats and placed dirt on her
corpse, and then burned the body.
Musa said he was baffled that throughout the unrest, the copy of the
Quran supposed to have been desecrated was never seen, nor was it
produced by the offended student.
The school has been closed down since the incident. All secondary
schools in the Gombe metropolitan area have been shut down indefinitely
to avert a spread of the crisis.
Authorities have arrested at least 12 students involved in the killing,
according to Voice of America. A five-member committee appointed by the
state to investigate the incident is due to present findings in two
weeks.