4th August, 2010
Aggrieved students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, Nigeria, have called for the immediate reinstatement of Adeleke Olorunwa Emmanuel (Goddey) and six other students they claimed were illegally suspended.
Speaking at a press conference at the secretariat of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) in Ikeja, Lagos, the students described the suspension of the students by the school authorities as unjust.
They claimed that the suspended students were attacked by officials of the institution without provocation.
Narrating his ordeal in the hands of the officials of the school, one of the affected students, Adeleke said officials of the school destroyed his properties and banned him and others from entering the school.
“This is the first time I will experience a situation where the management of a school will victimise students and destroy school’s properties they are supposed to protect.
”There are laid down rules on tackling offences committed by students and the stipulated punishment to be applied. But the university did not do that,†Adeleke said.
The suspended students said they were accused of disrupting academic activities and maltreated by the officials.
They denied the allegation and claimed that the institution suspended them for political reasons.
The students called for the immediate prosecution of those who destroyed their properties and immediate reinstatement of all those suspended.
Efforts to get the reaction of the institution to the students’ allegations proved abortive.
—Rukayat Igbanor