Court orders NDU to reinstate rusticated final year student

By Joy Emmanuel

Yenagoa

A high court sitting in Yenagoa has set aside and declared null and void, the rustication of one Micah Diniprema, a 27-year-old final year student of the Faculty of Education, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa state and ordered the authorities of the institution to reinstate and allow him to graduate.
The final year student was rusticated from the university for one semester with effect from second semester of the 2013/2014 academic session “for alleged offence of misconduct, because he did not utilise available internal means to resolve a university matter before going to court.”
Diniprema had dragged the chairman and secretary of the students’ union electoral commission, Dr Mrs. Comfort Zuofa and Mr. Barry Tamunoibi, respectively to court to challenge his disqualification and wrongful exclusion from lists of candidates to contest for the position of students’ union president of the institution in 2013.
However, he was ordered by the university authorities to withdraw the matter from court only for him to be rusticated for one semester with effect from second semester of the 2013/2014 session in a letter dated June 2, 2014 “for alleged offence of misconduct,” and “for not utilizing available internal means to resolve a university matter before going to court.”
In her judgment, the presiding judge, Justice (Mrs.) M. A. Ayemieye, ordered the university authorities or their agents to restrain themselves from unlawfully frustrating the student from graduating from the Niger Delta University.
“I hereby make the following order, a declaration that the letter dated June 2, 2014 which rusticated the claimant for one semester with effect from second semester of 2013/2014 academic session is therefore null and void and is hereby set aside,” she declared.

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