7 years after rustication, a student activist graduates from UNILAG.

Femi Adeyeye, a 500-level student at the University of Lagos, who had been rusticated by the institution since 2016 for protesting bad living and learning conditions, has been reinstated five years later.

The student activist, who graduated from the Department of Building, was suspended along with other student activists for their participation in the April 6 and 8, 2016 demonstrations, which resulted in the school’s closure and the subsequent indefinite suspension of the University of Lagos Students Union.

Adeyeye was also accused of criticising the institution’s administration for their inability to manage crises as “democrats” in a Facebook post titled “The Senate of the University of Lagos; a conglomeration of academic ignorami.”

While Adeyeye was suspended, UNILAG authorities accused him of leading a team called the “Save UNILAG Coalition,” which included members of the National Association of Nigerian Students, onto the school campus on March 31, 2016, to disrupt the activities of the Dean of Student Affairs office.

The university stated in a statement that Adeyeye and other student leaders were targeted not because of their participation in campus demonstrations, but because they were found to have violated a section of the institution’s 2015-2016 student information handbook.

In 2016, Adeyeye rejected the accusation, saying that he and other student leaders were invited by the university before a panel known as the “Special Senate Disciplinary Committee on Recent Students’ Protest,” where it was said that they were rusticated for their participation in a demonstration.

Everything he posted in the Facebook posting mentioned by the university, he claims, testified to the conclusion that the university Senate resolution about his rustication was undemocratic.

“It was disappointing that the university came out and said that. It is a false assertion. I was invited to a panel with other student leaders. The group was dubbed the ‘Special Senate Disciplinary Committee on Recent Students’ Protest.’