An angry mob of Muslim students in northern Nigeria beat their teacher to death on Wednesday for allegedly desecrating the Qur’an, police and witnesses said.
Oluwatoyin Olushekan was attacked and killed by the mob in Gandu Secondary School in Tudun Wada district, northern Gombe state.
Her attackers accused her of tearing a portion of the Qur’an she seized from a female student during an examination.
Bashir Dikko, Gombe state police spokesperson, said: ”There was an incident today [Wednesday] at Gandu Secondary School in the metropolis in which a teacher was lynched by some students who also burnt her car and set three blocks of classrooms ablaze.
”The school principal, who is a Muslim, sustained minor injuries as he was also beaten by the students when he tried to shield the woman from her assailants.”
Police are still investigating the cause of the incident and have embarked on a 24-hour patrol, especially around the Tudun Wada area, the spokesperson said.
Dikko said eight people have been arrested over the killing and the state government has ordered the closure of all secondary schools in the metropolis to prevent the spread of the violence.
A neighbour of Olushekan, a nursing mother, described what happened.
”From what we learnt from the staff in the school, she was invigilating an examination on Islamic studies when she caught a female student engaged in a malpractice and seized the paper she was copying from and tore it,” Badamasi Aliyu said on the telephone from Gombe.
”A student who was standing by the window shouted ‘Allahu Akbar [God is great],’ telling other students that she had desecrated the Qur’an, and this led to the attack that caused her death. It was a cold-blooded murder,” Aliyu said. — Sapa-AFP