A female student of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, has recounted how Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) officials broke into her room during a raid in the early hours of Wednesday.
While sharing details of the incident via an audio recording obtained from FUTA students’ union page on X, the female student said she thought the masked men who broke into her room were either thieves or kidnappers. However, she would later find that they were EFCC officials.
Posts shared on X revealed that some students of the university were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday when EFCC operatives broke into more than three off-campus lodges at the South Gate area of the school.
A statement by the students’ union revealed that the operatives “destroyed properties, molested a female student and inhumanly inflicted injuries on some other students”.
URGENT NOTIFICATION ON THE UNLAWFUL ARREST OF OUR STUDENTS BY EFFC AGENTS‼️‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/03ZGbifumh
— FUTA STUDENTS’ UNION (@futasugovt) February 14, 2024
Video of the EFCC operatives during the night raid
The female student, in her narration, said:“I woke up with flashlights on me. I was not wearing anything. I saw three men, and I was just begging them not to touch me because I was not wearing anything.
“I could not even think they were law enforcement agents. I thought they were thieves or kidnappers. I was begging them not to touch me. They were asking for my name, department and if I was staying here. I was stammering, and one had to remove his mask to tell me that they are EFCC.
“He turned his back to me and I saw EFCC. He said I should wear my clothes and take them to the rooms of the guys with cars. I told them I don’t know guys with cars, that I am just staying here.
“He stayed with me while I wore my clothes. He did not go out. Then I wore my clothes and came outside. He asked me questions that, “who are here?” And I said I don’t know.
“They started breaking doors. There was this boy in 100 level, who was telling them that he was a new student. They beat everybody.
They packed everybody. They asked us to lie down on the floor.
They were just breaking door, breaking everywhere. They packed phones, packed everything and left.
“Some of them corked gun, saying that if those guys try to run, they were going to shoot them.”
This incident came three months after Ola Olukoyede, EFCC chairman, ordered that sting operations at night be stopped under all the commands of the commission.
This ban was put in place after EFCC agents raided an Osun-based estate and arrested more than 60 students of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) on November 1, 2023.
FIJ learned from a FUTA student, who does not want to be named, that the students are worried and angry because of the incident.
“We are still battling incessant robberies at North Gate. A student was shot in one of the robberies, and now EFCC is invading South Gate at midnight,” the student told FIJ.
