Court allows 214 students kicked out of UNICAL Law faculty to continue classes

The Federal High Court in Abuja has told the University of Calabar (UNICAL) to let 214 students who were ejected from the Law faculty attend classes, access academic portals, and use other facilities. This order stands while the court looks into the students' case.

A statement from the students' lawyer was shared with PREMIUM TIMES on Monday. Judge Joyce Abdulmalik gave an interim order directing the university to allow the affected students "unrestricted access" to lectures, their student portal, and other academic resources until the main case is resolved.

The judge made this decision after hearing from lawyers for both the students and the university on Monday.

Jonas Abuo, the university's lawyer, told the court that although the defendants received all necessary documents for the case, they could not respond because the vice chancellor and registrar were out of the country. He mentioned that he had only filed a conditional appearance and asked for more time to allow the defendants to respond to the suit.

Bernard Okpi, the students' lawyer, disagreed with this request. He said the defendants were served on August 24 and had already used up the 30 days they had to file their response. He asked the court to continue with the hearing or, if the court decided to grant an adjournment, to award N2 million in costs and let the students file their motion for an interim order.

After listening to both sides, Judge Abdulmalik granted the students' request for an interim order. She told both parties to keep the "status quo". The case will resume on November 25 for further hearing.

During the court session, Mr Okpi was joined by Confidence Mbang, Bennedict Otu, Udoh Ekananem, and Kenneth Ibobo representing the students. The university was represented by Mr Abuo and Akiba Eyo Veronica.

The case

The students filed the case after UNICAL announced in August that it would remove 214 of its 435 second-year LL.B students from the Faculty of Law and send them back to their original departments.

The university said only 221 of the 435 second-year students were properly admitted into the Law programme, while the other 214 moved to the faculty from different departments. They also stated that the affected students could not gain admission to the Nigerian Law School if they stayed in Law under their current admission status.

But the students argued that the university had admitted them into Law, accepted their fees, registered them for Law courses, and let them take exams and advance in the programme. They also mentioned that the university later told them to complete JAMB regularisation, which they did after paying the necessary fees.

They then took legal action against UNICAL, Vice Chancellor Offiong Offiong, the registrar, and President Bola Tinubu, seeking N5 billion in damages and asking the court to allow them to continue their studies in the Law programme.