A Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan has voided the rustication of a student activist at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Ojo Aderemi, by the university management.
Aderemi was the President of the Students Union Government (SUG) of the University of Ibadan (UI) before he was rusticated for four semesters by the management of the institution.
The court ruling was confirmed to SaharaReporters on Friday morning by a lawyer to the student, who revealed that the judgement was given on Tuesday, 30 May, 2023.
SaharaReporters had in April 2019 reported that the rustication decision was sealed at a sitting of the Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC).
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Ojo, a 300 Level student of the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, was accused of conducting an illegal congress of the union, leading a protest and breaking the glass of an office while a lecturer was inside — allegations that were denied by Ojo.
Speaking on the allegation, Ojo said: “The allegations were that I conducted an illegal congress, that we protested and that I said the VC victimized some students who were suspended during my inauguration speech. Those were the allegations. And also they said during the protest that a glass got broken and a lecturer was inside the office when the glass was broken and he was traumatised; well, that’s unconnected with the protest.
“I’ve said that before and there was really no objection that was raised that the congress was not illegal. We wrote the Students Representative Council (SRC), it went through the process. So I really don’t know…”
Feeling dissatisfied with his rustication, Ojo had approached the Federal High Court in Ibadan to nullify the decision of the school for allegedly breaching the core principle of rule of law which is fair hearing.
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Reacting to the court decision that nullified his rustication from the school and ordered for his reinstatement, Ojo, through his lawyer, praised the trial court for allowing justice to prevail at last in the case.
He said: “It is a justice for rule of law and we are glad that the court nullified the rustication. This is because it was only the Vice-Chancellor that testified against him and he was not allowed by the school to prove his innocence before rusticating him.
“Of course he agreed he protested which is within his constitutional right, but the allegation of vandalism was decided by the school without fair hearing.”
