Four months after the students of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, staged a massive protest against what they described as poor welfare conditions on the campus, the management of the university has announced the suspension of some of the students including the Students’ Union President, Muhammed Olaniyan.
Olaniyan, a 400-level student of the Department of Accounting, has been handed a four-semester suspension, while other union leaders including the Speaker of the Students’ Union Representative Council, Adeyanju Adenipekun was suspended for two semesters.
Meanwhile, while the Public Relations Officer of the students’ union and 500-level student of the Faculty of Law, Jumai Fabuyi is suspended for one academic session, the union’s General Secretary, Emmanuel Afolabi, is yet to pick his letter from his English Department at the Faculty of Arts.
The new development, according to the university’s Deputy Registrar (Information), Mr. Toyin Adebule, followed the outcome of the university’s Senate, which met on Wednesday, July 27, which reviewed the recommendation of the investigative panel earlier set up to look into the matter.
According to Adebule, the committee had earlier recommended summary dismissal of some of the students, but that the Senate in its wisdom had commuted the punishment to suspension raging between two and four semesters.
It would be recalled that the students of the university had between Wednesday, April 6, and Friday, 8, 2016, staged a massive but peaceful protest against poor welfare condition on the campus, especially the scarcity of drinking water due to what they termed monopoly of the university’s water production company serving the university community.
Following the inability of the university management to quell the protest, the university Senate had mandated the vice-Chancellor, Prof. Rahaman Bello to shut down the institution and announced the suspension of the students’ union.
Meanwhile, the affected students’ union leaders have resolved to meet over the development Thursday.
According to one of them, who craved anonymity, the legal year break embarked upon by the courts has affected the suits filed by some of them to protest the suspension of the students’ union activities and their invitation to the probe panel.
“But we are sure we will be victorious over this matter,” the source said.
– New Telegraph
