Thirty-one students of the Nalerigu Senior High School (NASS), in the Northern Region, have been arrested by the Northern Regional Police Command for their alleged involvement in riots at the school.
Apart from vandalising school properties, the students also made away with 90 computers from the ICT laboratory.
The students were said to be protesting the decision of the headmaster of the school, Mr Adams Martin, to postpone an entertainment programme scheduled for last Saturday.
Unhappy with headmaster’s explanation
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr Ebenezer Tetteh, said on the evening of August 1, this year, some students went to Mr Martin to ask for permission to organise an entertainment show, popularly known in the school as “Closing Jams,” to mark the end of the term.According to ASP Mr Tetteh, the request was turned down with an explanation that it was too late in the evening and that some students were still writing their examination.
That, Mr Tetteh explained, did not go down well with the students who went to their dormitories and cut the power supply to the school.
He said the students also mobilised themselves and attacked the headmaster’s bungalow. They smashed the windscreens of five school vehicles in the process.
He added that the fuming students also vandalised a newly constructed ICT centre and made away with about 90 computers.
Mr Tetteh said the students further attacked the girls dormitory as a punishment for their female colleagues who refused to join the riot.
The headmaster had to be whisked away by one of the teachers on his motorbike to escape harm.
Arrest
Mr Tetteh said 31 of the students were arrested in the school on Sunday, August 2, a day after the incident and were in police custody assisting with investigations.
He said two out of the 31 had been charged with stealing, while the rest had been charged with rioting and causing unlawful damage and harm.
Some of the 90 stolen computers, Mr Tetteh explained, had been retrieved. The police is working closely with the school’s authorities to retrieve the remaining computers.
Source: graphic.com.gh
