Governor Kashim Shettima

By Michael Olugbode

The Mohammed Goni College of Legal and Islamic Studies in Maiduguri was on Tuesday night razed down by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect.

The school awards diplomas and certificates in law and Islamic studies.
According to eyewitnesses, the school, which is located in the centre of the town, was attacked at 10.10pm by over 30 hoodlums.

An eyewitness told THISDAY at the school premises which had some of its buildings still smoking Wednesday afternoon that the hoodlums shut at a security man at the gate, forcing him to open it to them.

He said they immediately lined up all the other security men on duty, instructing them to lie down but that was after another security man was shot in the arm to underline that they meant business.

Immediately the security men were held hostage, the hoodlums who came with various arms and petrol in cans, sprayed the Administrative block, housing the offices of the deans and the council chamber with fuel and setting it ablaze.

The eyewitness equally revealed that the hoodlums who are between the ages of 12 and 16 years, waited for about 90 minutes to see the buildings engulfed in flame before departing.

It was learnt that they moved from the school to a secondary school, Mafoni Day Secondary School, in the neighbourhood and aimed at wreaking more havoc but were chased away by a detachment of the Joint Task Force (JTF).
When THISDAY visited the school, some lecturers were seen lamenting the situation. One of them said the whole students’ files dating back to the first admission in 1980 were lost to the fire.

The lecturers equally lamented that the school’s computers were totally destroyed by the fire and that the examination scripts of  the students were also destroyed.

Efforts to get official confirmation from the Joint Task Force was unsuccessful as the GSM lines of its spokesman was not accessible due to the bad network services in the town for some times now.