Paul Osuyi, Asaba

About five teachers, including a vice principal were allegedly injured when students of Zappa Secondary School, Asaba, Delta State protested the transfer of a school principal by the state government.

The teachers were said to have sustained the injuries while attempting to stop the protesting students from going outside the gate.

The students allegedly pulled down the school gate and injured the teachers in the process.

Besides, they were said to have shut the school, and vowed to keep it locked up, saying no academic activities will take place in and within the premises until the transferred principal is brought back to the school.

Chanting war songs and bearing placards, one of the protesting students who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “We will thwart every effort of any new principal sent to us. If it is not our principal that we know, it will be no other principal.”

The situation caused pandemonium in Asaba metropolis, as the protesting students marched through the streets of the state capital to West-End Mixed Secondary School where they claimed their principal had been deployed to.

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But they met a brick wall at West-End college as students of the school prevented them from entry.

But for the timely intervention of security operatives, there would have been bloodshed as students of both institutions, were prepared to engaged one another in physical attack.

When contacted, Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chiedu Ebie, condemned the students’ action, insisting that they have no right to take laws into their hands.

“What do you think? Do they have a right to do that? I went to the school yesterday. I had the opportunity of meeting with the prefect of the school.

“And they have very much love for the principal. They have good things to say about her, which is heart warming and quite good. It is good to know that but then, unfortunately they don’t have a right to tell me who their principal should be.

“They don’t have a right to protest. After they protested, they marched to Zappa Mixed in search of their principal, they went to West-End where there was a confrontation between them and the West-End students.

“So, you see. Yes, they have good intention and genuine love for their principal, but they took it a bit too far. And they don’t know that the consequence of their actions are far-reaching. They have right but certainly they have limitation,” Ebie said.