Nigerians have condemned the assault on an unidentified student of the Yaba College of Technology allegedly by the school’s security guards for wearing a pair of ripped jeans.
In a video posted on Instablog9ja on Wednesday, one of the security guards could be seen pushing the student to the wall while holding on to his shirt.
The student could be heard in the video telling the guard to leave his shirt, while onlookers were also begging the security man to leave the victim.
However, one of the security guards started beating the student, who struggled to get free from the grip of the man.
Reacting to the video, a commenter, @kunlereal wrote, “In Nigeria, once you’re a uniform man, even if it’s Shoprite security man, the spirit of harassment just comes naturally.”
Another commenter, @organicsbytrish, wrote, “He’s not a criminal! These useless security officials doing wetin dem no send dem! If ordinary tire burst now they’ll take cover!”
@bdsluxurywearsng said, “You see all this security men ehn, they always do too much. Feeling like some FBI agents.”
Another user @llxrr__, wrote, “He didn’t steal. Just send him home to change. Schools have now turned to fashion police.”
However, the Public Relations Officer of the school, Joe Ejiofor, said the preliminary report was that the student slapped one of the security men, adding that the school management would investigate the matter.
He stated, “The college has a dress code, which is clearly spelt out and pasted on the two gates. What happened was that the student had been warned on several occasions about proper behaviour and when he came in this morning (Wednesday) violating the college’s dress code, the guards tried to stop him and before one knew it, he had slapped the security man and that was what triggered the scuffle.
“The student had threatened the security man before that he was a member of a group and that he was going to deal with him, but we don’t train our security men to assault students; we have sent the name of the supposed student to the records office to find out if he is truly a student of the school.
“The head of security will bring up a report and the college will look at it and take action from there.”