Details
of the attack are still sketchy but the provost of the college, Mulima
Mata, confirmed the incident, which the News Agency of Nigeria said
occurred early Sunday morning.The Yobe state command of the Nigeria police could however not be reached to confirm the incident.
Residents believe the attack has the imprimatur of the extremist Boko Haram sect which has in the past three years slaughtered thousands of innocent Nigerians in attacks on schools, places of worship, media establishments and security installations.
The corpses of the students have been deposited at the General Sanni Abacha Specialist Hospital and more are still been expected at press time.
The Nation learnt that the students were shot in their hostels and classrooms while fleeing from the attackers.
Gujba is about 60 kilometres South East of Damaturi the state capital The State Commissioner of Police Sanusi Rufai confirmed the attack but said the details of the attack are still sketchy.
“Yes, I just got a report of the attack on the school but I cannot give you details at the moment because my men are yet to give me a full brief of the incident,” CP Sanusi informed.
Academic activities only resumed last week in schools across Yobe state following 10 weeks of closure after the brazen attack by members of the violent sect on two secondary schools, which led to the death of 29 students and three teachers.
The state government ordered the closure of all schools in the northeastern state after the attack by members of the sect on Government Secondary School, Mamudo.
But Government Secondary School, Mamudo, remained closed for another two weeks for the conclusion of ongoing reconstruction work in the school, the state Commissioner of Education, Mohammed Lamin said. The Boko Haram sect had on Wednesday and Thursday murdered at least 27 persons in two separate attacks in the border towns of Borno State, government officials and security sources said.
Nobel laureate,
Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that the late Ghanaian diplomat and poet,
Kofi Awoonor and himself could have been together at the Storymoja/Hay
Literature Festival held in Nairobi, Kenya.
He said he was invited to the same festival but could not attend.
Awoonor was killed by terrorists last Saturday at the Westgate Shopping Mall shooting in Nairobi. Soyinka said two commitments: a public conversation with a very brave individual, Karima Bennoune, an Algerian national, whose trenchant publication – Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, and the annual conference of international investigators in Tunis, were responsible for his inability to attend the festival. He said: “My absence was particularly regrettable, because I had planned to make up for my failure to turn up for the immediate prior edition.
Participant or absentee however, this is one edition we shall not soon forget. It was at least two days after the listing of Kofi Awoonor among the victims that I even recollected the fact that the Festival was ongoing at that very time.
“With that realisation came another: that Kofi and I could have been splitting a bottle at that same watering hole in between events and at the end of each day. My feelings, I wish to state clearly, did not undergo any changes.
The emotions of rage, hate and contempt remained on the same qualitative and quantitative levels,” he added. Soyinka spoke in Lagos yesterday during a memorial reading session tagged Humanity and Against and held in honour of the late Ghanaian poet.
He described the late Awoonor as a passionate African who gave primacy of place to values derived from his Ewe heritage. “That, in turn, means that he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of ecumenism towards other systems of belief and cultural usages – this being the scriptural ethos that permeates belief practices of most of this continent.
We mourn our colleague and brother, but first, we denounce his killers, the virulent sub-species of humanity who bathe their hands in innocent blood,” he added.
Renowned poet, Prof JP Clark explained why Soyinka and himself were not at the funeral of the late Chinua Achebe at Ogidi, Anambra State, blaming it on politicians that hijacked the funeral. He noted that Prof Soyinka and himself did not sit and plot action on whether or not to attend Achebe’s funeral in Ogidi. “Politicians hijacked the Achebe’s funeral.
I said to myself, if there is life after death, Achebe would be laughing at the politicians. So, writers could not have found a space in Achebe’s funeral. From the President to the Governors, they hijacked it,” he noted. Clark said critics might be wondering why a memorial is being held in honour of Awoonor in Lagos unlike when Chinua Achebe died.
President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Prof Remi Raji, who read from his collection of poems, The Fire Next Time, said of the late Ghanaian poet: “African literature has indeed lost an influential voice. The name, Kofi Awoonor, was very present in our minds as young students.
Though I never met him in person, his writings have been influential. The ANA has sent a condolence letter to the Ghana authority.
Today’s memorial is very instructive. His death is a reflection of the urban barbarisms in the globe today.” Other scholars who read excerpts at the memorial were Prof Kole Omotoso, Prof Femi Osofisan, Dr. Wale Okediran and Lola Shoneyin.
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/48420.html
He said he was invited to the same festival but could not attend.Awoonor was killed by terrorists last Saturday at the Westgate Shopping Mall shooting in Nairobi. Soyinka said two commitments: a public conversation with a very brave individual, Karima Bennoune, an Algerian national, whose trenchant publication – Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here, and the annual conference of international investigators in Tunis, were responsible for his inability to attend the festival. He said: “My absence was particularly regrettable, because I had planned to make up for my failure to turn up for the immediate prior edition.
Participant or absentee however, this is one edition we shall not soon forget. It was at least two days after the listing of Kofi Awoonor among the victims that I even recollected the fact that the Festival was ongoing at that very time.
“With that realisation came another: that Kofi and I could have been splitting a bottle at that same watering hole in between events and at the end of each day. My feelings, I wish to state clearly, did not undergo any changes.
The emotions of rage, hate and contempt remained on the same qualitative and quantitative levels,” he added. Soyinka spoke in Lagos yesterday during a memorial reading session tagged Humanity and Against and held in honour of the late Ghanaian poet.
He described the late Awoonor as a passionate African who gave primacy of place to values derived from his Ewe heritage. “That, in turn, means that he was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of ecumenism towards other systems of belief and cultural usages – this being the scriptural ethos that permeates belief practices of most of this continent.
We mourn our colleague and brother, but first, we denounce his killers, the virulent sub-species of humanity who bathe their hands in innocent blood,” he added.
Renowned poet, Prof JP Clark explained why Soyinka and himself were not at the funeral of the late Chinua Achebe at Ogidi, Anambra State, blaming it on politicians that hijacked the funeral. He noted that Prof Soyinka and himself did not sit and plot action on whether or not to attend Achebe’s funeral in Ogidi. “Politicians hijacked the Achebe’s funeral.
I said to myself, if there is life after death, Achebe would be laughing at the politicians. So, writers could not have found a space in Achebe’s funeral. From the President to the Governors, they hijacked it,” he noted. Clark said critics might be wondering why a memorial is being held in honour of Awoonor in Lagos unlike when Chinua Achebe died.
President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Prof Remi Raji, who read from his collection of poems, The Fire Next Time, said of the late Ghanaian poet: “African literature has indeed lost an influential voice. The name, Kofi Awoonor, was very present in our minds as young students.
Though I never met him in person, his writings have been influential. The ANA has sent a condolence letter to the Ghana authority.
Today’s memorial is very instructive. His death is a reflection of the urban barbarisms in the globe today.” Other scholars who read excerpts at the memorial were Prof Kole Omotoso, Prof Femi Osofisan, Dr. Wale Okediran and Lola Shoneyin.
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/48420.html
RELATED LINKSTRAGEDY: Ailing Actor, Pa Kasumu Is Losing His Voice And Sight
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/48401.html
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