Nigerian Student Rusticated Without Notice Seeks Justice From Ekiti University

In March 2024, Bisola, a student at the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, made a long, emotional remark about her academic journey in a blog post on Instagram, a microblogging website. After surviving two spillovers and spending about seven years on a four-year course, she discovered she was among many students who had long been withdrawn from her department for different reasons.

Bisola was offered a provisional admission at EKSU to study Microbiology in 2017. Campus Reporter spoke to her on April 29 at a lounge in the school area, where she sells roasted plantain, chicken and barbecue. The small business helps her foot her Dad’s hospital bills and her tuition fees while also catering to her younger brother who stays with her.

She would later bring out different files containing all her documents, such as the school admission letter, the receipt of her acceptance fee and many more. She opened her student portal to show all her paid tuition fees and approved results from 100-level to 400-level. She also showed the list of students who were withdrawn from her department and the different letters she has written begging authorities to “save her life.” 

She had been to the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academics, Prof. Joseph Babatola, but no solution was offered. Seeming frustrated, Bisola blamed the school for having to shoulder over ₦200,000 of tuition fees for the two spillovers she had in 2022 and 2023.

“The school can remove ‘active’ from our portal,” she said, wondering why the school refused to inform them they were no longer students but collected their money. 

In December 2023, Bisola was allowed to revalidate her admission, signaling her legitimacy as a student. The Bursary department does revalidation every academic session to re-establish the admission of students, using a computerised system. Usually, some staff in the university would be on site to oversee the process and check the barcode on each student’s payment receipt.

“We did the revalidation and I collected the slip,” she recalled, showing a copy of her slip. She added that the person who signed the slip was Prof. Oluwole Moses David, her former department head and chairman of the revalidation for the 2022/2023 academic session. 

Unknown to her, the problem had begun when she was in her second year at the university. Bisola had defaulted several times paying her tuition fees and the school had not allowed her into examination halls on many occasions because of her financial constraints. 

“I managed to sit for nine courses; failed seven and passed two, because they kept seizing my scripts”, she told Campus Reporter, noting that this brought her CGPA to 1.45 by the end of her second year. 

Even before her second year at university, she had two carryovers, which caused her two extra years. After meeting her departmental portal manager, Adeola Pius, about her poor results, he told her “There’s no problem” and admonished her to rewrite all the courses she had failed.

“I’ve done everything and even passed everything,” she cried. “It’s just the department now that’s giving me issues.”

Although Bisola seemed unaware, it has been established in one of the university handbooks that “to make normal progress toward the degree, each student must pass all courses specified in this (their) curriculum and obtain a cumulative grade point average CGPA of at least 1.00 each semester.”

According to the handbook, any student can be asked to withdraw from their department/faculty, if during their programme, they fall below the CGPA of 1.00 for two consecutive semesters but this would be after a warning has been served and such a student has been on probation.

Bisola noted that the minimum required CGPA in her department is 1.5 but she was never asked to withdraw until March this year; she was neither warned nor put on probation. She added that the school has withdrawn her since the 2018/2019 academic session, when she was in her second year, without notifying her. 

She kept attending lectures, paying dues and writing exams. Her student portal, where she pays tuition fees and checks her results, has been active to this day. 

“When something like that happens, it is the HOD or level coordinator that would call you and inform you about the situation but they didn’t inform us,” she continued. “For them to give me the school ID card in 400-level (because of NYSC) signifies that I’m a student. I did SIWES in the 300-level and a project in the 400-level and now, they said I’m no longer a student; I’ve been withdrawn since the 200-level. How?” 

Withdrawing students is not new in Nigerian universities; those in such situations mostly discover when they’re in the final lap or at the point of clearance without prior communication. Campus Reporter spoke to two other students who said they were withdrawn from the department without any formal or informal notification.

“To be honest, if I was informed I would have moved to another department and I would have graduated by now,” one of the students, who simply identified himself as Timilehin, told Campus Reporter. He had gained admission in 2017/2018 and was supposed to have graduated by the 2021/2022 academic sessions. He now relies on God’s interference to have his certificate. 

“We keep paying school fees. Our portal was active. Our results were approved and when it was time to start our clearance, they said we had already been withdrawn from MCB,” he added. 

Timileyin had paid over ₦500,000 into the school account with no hope he would graduate. 

Another student, Olamide, has a similar problem with Bisola. They both gained admission in 2017, only for them to realise that they had long been withdrawn from the school.

Falegan Rotimi, the current head of the Microbiology department, was elusive when Campus Reporter contacted him, saying: “We didn’t rusticate any students from the school. We only alerted them on the withdrawn status on their portal handle or portal account.” 

But Bisola insisted they were not informed they had been withdrawn for years until recently. “If we were alerted, why did they just release the list?” she asked. 

Leaving a lot of answers hanging, she got into another series of questions: “If they had withdrawn me since 200-level, it’s very fine—but why was I getting informed on the 26th of March 2024? We have a level coordinator, how come she or the former HOD never called us to tell us? Why have they been collecting school fees from us since 300-level to spillover? Why were we given project supervisors and topics? How come we did the project and defence, and we were graded? Why was our portal still active, showing the department and all our results?”

The department head said only the IT unit of the school can clarify why the students who have long withdrawn from the department still have their portals active. 

Bisola told Campus Reporter that the school seems to be putting everything behind her. After her back and forth, the school authority wants her to start all over again — from 200-level.

“I am leaving the school; I cannot start over from the 200 level,” she said.

This story was funded by the Campus Reporter project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).