LAGOS, Nigeria -- Enraged university students rioted and boycotted classes across Nigeria Monday to protest the deaths of 15 people shot by police during a campus demonstration, news reports said.
President Gen. Ibrahim Babangida named a five-member commission to investigate what he called 'an appalling disaster' last Friday at Ahmadu Bello University near Zaria in northern Nigeria. He said he expected a report within three weeks.
News reports said anti-riot police opened fire on students protesting a new policy banning male students from visiting women's dormitories. Four died immediately while the other 11 died later in hospitals, the government-run Daily Times newspaper reported. Two of the victims were university employees, it said.
The Daily Times said doctors were 'battling to save the lives of others hit by bullets,' but the number of wounded was unknown.
The students also were protesting the expulsion of two students accused of masterminding an unauthorized visit by male students to a female dormitory after the ban took effect last month.
Government radio reported students at the University of Ibadan in western Nigeria set fire Monday to a campus police station, seized a rifle and other equipment, and barricaded entrances to the college to protest the killings.
Students at Ibadan and four other major universities -- Lagos, Ilorin, Jos and Kano -- also boycotted classes and demanded legal action be taken against Ahmadu Bello University's vice chancellor, Professor Ango Abdullah, in the deaths of their peers.
At Lagos, police shot and wounded two students Saturday when demonstrators tried to march to Babangida's residence to protest the slayings.
Babangida said the commission would be headed by retired Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Abisoye and include former student leader Segun Okewo.
'I am confident that members of this commission are persons of integrity and character who will be able to undertake a fair and unbiased assessment of the unfortunate incident,' he said.
He asked the commission to draw up recommendations to avoid 'such an appalling disaster again.'
