Police fire tear gas in Nigeria university protest

Police fired tear gas at several hundred students and unemployed youths in Nigeria's largest city protesting a presidential decision to rename one of the nation's top universities.

Friday's demonstration began peacefully outside the gates of the University of Lagos as students surrounded an armored police truck and placed palm fronds on it - a symbol of protest in Africa's most populous nation.

Many had begun to return to campus when an altercation broke out between some protesters and police. Officers responded by firing tear gas, sending screaming students running back inside the university's gate. Some students began throwing stones and glass bottles at the officers. A senior police officer threw stones back at the students in between firing tear gas canisters.

At least one student became overcome by the gas and had to be carried away. Officers briefly detained one of the students.

The anger comes from a decision Tuesday by President Goodluck Jonathan to change the name of the university to Moshood Abiola University, in honor of a political prisoner who died in jail over a decade ago. Abiola was a businessman widely believed to be the winner of a 1993 presidential poll annulled by then-military ruler Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Babangida's military successor, Gen. Sani Abacha, later jailed Abiola. The businessman died in prison just as Nigeria's military gave up control of the country and the nation tried democratic rule.

Since the decision, protesting students and local unemployed men known as "area boys" have marched through the streets and at one point took over a bridge linking Lagos' islands to the mainland. The university declared a sudden two-week holiday Wednesday but many students remain in the university's dormitories, from where they continue to organize protests.