Politics That Hold Expelled NOUN Student Leaders From Getting Justice One And Half Years Later
https://skytrendnews.com/2017/05/01/politics-hold-expelled-noun-student-leaders-getting-justice-one-half-years-later/

The nation was taken by storm in November 2015 when National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) under its former Vice Chancellor, Prof Vincent Ado Tenebe stir what Guardian Newspaper described as the Hornets nest by expelling two of its most vibrant student leaders.

Not quite a few observers thought that despite heading to court to challenge what many described as grave injustice, one and half years later, the matter will remain unresolved.

It was a surprise for me to hear last week that the students are yet to get justice.

The students, Messier Abdulrazaq Oyebanji Hamzat, a Masters Students in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution and Elais Ozikpu, a 400Level Student in Mass Communication who were then President and Public Relation Officers of the Congress of NOUN Students (CONS) respectively were expelled for daring to question the numerous irregularities in
the University and demanded an official recognition of a student union body in the institution.

The student leaders who also missed their graduation in January 2016 accused the University management of perpetrating what they described as endemic corruption.

The then Vice Chancellor, Prof Vincent Tenebe who sort to intimidate the student leaders wrote a petition against them to the Nigeria Police making several false allegations, but upon careful scrutiny by the Lagos State police, the allegations were found to be spurious, baseless and unfounded. The police then declared that the students
were merely fighting for students’ rights in a peaceful and matured way, which is legal.

Having failed to get the police to do a hook job and arrest the students, the University felt they should be silenced through other means. In November 2015, NOUN expelled both students in an effort to silence them and coerce other students into forceful submission.

The students preceded with their advocacy, submitting petitions to various agencies, including the office of the President, National Universities Commission (NUC), National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Minister of Education among others until the former Vice Chancellor was sacked by President Muhammadu Buhari in a dramatic way
3 months later.

Following their rustication, both students, along with their colleagues at the Congress of NOUN students (CONS) filed a Fundamental Human Rights suit In December 2015 with reference number: FHC/L/CS/1883/2015 at the Federal High Court Lagos to enforce their rights and that of other students.

From the beginning, it appeared NOUN has no defense for their action, neither did they file any. Instead, they employed all sorts of tactics to frustrate and delay the case.

For example, despite having enough time to respond to the service in line with rules of court, NOUN counsel, Nas Ogunshakin on the first day of hearing told the court that they were briefed about the case on the day, hence they couldn’t file any response. He requested for adjournment.

After several adjournments, all at the instance of NOUN counsels and deliberate absence from court without filing any response, the presiding Judge, Hon. Olatoregun Ishola on 17th February 2016 adjourned the case to April 13th, 2016 for judgment.

On the judgment day, the politics began. While NOUN students from across the federation had travelled down to Lagos to witness the judgment, Justice Olatoregun Ishola refused to give judgment, despite having all parties in court without any pending application.

She simply announced another 2 months adjournment without giving any reason. Even when the students counsel, Gabriel Orban try to inquire the reason for the adjournment since all parties are in court and are ready for the judgment, the judge threatened to send him to jail. The student went home disappointed.

Before the next adjournment date, NOUN counsel had devised other means of delaying the judgment. They brought an application to arrest the judgment, arguing that they were not given fair hearing.

This unknown application successfully dragged the matter for another 7 months until January 26th 2017, when the judge finally ruled in favor of the application to arrest judgement, granting a fine of N50, 000 against NOUN for delay.

The presiding judge, Justice Olatoregun Ishola while awarding the fine blamed NOUN counsels for the saga, which was brought about by their serial absence in court and refusal to file response in line with rules. She further adjourns the case to 9th March 2017.

The ruling to arrest judgment over claims of fair hearing is indeed another controversial one in the Nigerian legal system, which obviously attracted some wide condemning in the public. Observers in public discourse berated the judge for giving such ruling, accusing her of bias and compromise.

Meanwhile, in an effort to undo what they perceived as unfair ruling, the students counsel, Barrister Gabriel Orban filed an appeal to challenge the ruling of the court.

He sorts a leave of appeal from the court, but rather than grant the leave, Justice Olatoregun accused the students and their counsel of sponsoring public condemnation of her ruling, though she presented no evidence. Without allowing the students counsel to respond to the accusation, the judge announced her withdrawal from the case.

While the withdrawal itself was a welcome development, unknown to the students, Justice Olatoregun had set another stumbling block on their way.

It was expected that the case be reassigned to a new judge, but this didn’t happen. After waiting in vain for weeks, the registrar of the court was approached for inquiry.

It was at this point that the registrar informed them that the case cannot be reassigned by the registrar or even the Chief Judge because Justice Olatoregun had specifically indicated that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen should reassign the case and as such, nobody else can reassign it.

That was a strange development. Without wasting anytime, they wrote a letter to the Office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, through the Chief Judge of Lagos, but till date, the letter is yet to get any response, neither has the case been reassigned. It is therefore obvious that this case is more political and legal.

A Fundamental Human Rights case is usually expected to be concluded within 3 months or thereabout, but it’s almost one and half years and this case seem to be heading nowhere.

More importantly, Human Right cases involving high profile personalities which started after this case had long been concluded.

The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki had gone from Federal High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court in an effort to stop his CCT trial within the same period. Colonel Sambo Dasuki had also secure judgment over Fundamental Human Rights, including another judgment at the Ecowas Court within the same period.

Additionally, Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaki had also secure judgment in his Fundamental Human Rights case against the Federal Government.

These are all high profile cases with more complications and complexity. However, these students matter which simple and straight had failed to make head way almost 1 and half years later.