“The legitimate expression of differing opinions and concerns is an essential part of the academic community…”
This is a phrase from the students’ handbook, which is a fitting point for the start of our Editorial today.
Embedded in the above phrase is a summary of what the history of universities as centres of HIGHER learning has been all about. This idea of academic freedom to pursue knowledge in its diversity, even when it means differing with the opinions of authorities, is one of the key defining features that helped distinguish the early universities of Medieval Europe from other institutions of higher education that had been present prior in Africa, in the Arab world, in China and other places.
It is further worth noting that this concept of holding differing opinions is not just applicable to the university as a legal entity but also to individual members who make up the university. And this is why a careful look through the history of social changes and world-changing ideologies exposes how the university campus readily serves as a cradle for these ideas, as the university is of necessity a birthing place for original thoughts, even when it counters the consensus as long as it is within the ambit of the law.
This is why it is not surprising that university students have played leading roles in driving social change and asking the truth from power. A worthy example around this is the rise of the anti-colonialism movement in Africa, which came after a generation of young Africans were exposed to the four walls of the university, where the scales of ignorance fell from their eyes. Another is the Arab Spring, which swept through the Arab world and set several oppressive societal regimes on their toes.
One of the backdrops to this though is the fact that this freedom, like every other fundamental human freedom, has readily come under attack by antics and laws by those who hold authority and fear the change this looks to bring. This is no fault of anyone beyond the fact that power corrupts and the more absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thus, we see a trend where high-handed authorities have looked to suppress legitimate dissent.
Coming down to the Nigerian education scene, a look at the relationship that student activism has enjoyed with authorities validates the above. What we have seen is a situation where both governments and school management have tried to use power and brute force to put out this expression, which is also an inherent legal right — the liberty to dissent and hold differing opinions from what those in authority would be comfortable with.
Over time, also, in the University of Ibadan, the institution of the Central Student Disciplinary Council (CSDC) has grown infamous as a behemoth for fear, a kind of gallows where dissenters meet their fate. And the imposing aspects of the council, it is said that the school keeps every student under brute control, a control that only seeks to please the school.
In this Editorial, like never before, we would be looking into the institution of the SDC and also the criminalisation of Students’ expression, which, as we’ve been taught in our very own school, is a legitimate inviolable right.
The Student Disciplinary Council
The highest body set up by the University to determine alleged acts of student misconduct is the Central Student Disciplinary Committee (CSDC) of the University of Ibadan. The CSDC is established according to the Student Information Handbook, which is in accordance with Section 5(1) and (2)(h) of the regulations on student conduct. The mandate of the Committee includes all disciplinary matters relating to students, the authority to advise Senate on wider disciplinary matters and the duty to advise Senate on matters relating to student discipline.
The CSDC is headed by the Vice-Chancellor and has members like the Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Administration, Academic and Research), the Registrar, Provost of the College of Medicine, Dean of Law, Dean of Students, and the Deputy Registrar (Students) who is the Secretary. Attendees also include the Chief Security Officer, Legal Officer, Examinations Officer, Heads of Departments or Hall Wardens of the concerned students, among others, who attend when necessary. Though the guidelines indicate that the students under disciplinary proceedings have the right to defend themselves with witnesses, through documents and first-hand reports, it would seem the procedure sadly remains heavily biased in favour of the institution.
Procedurally, the students are supposed to be formally invited to attend disciplinary panels by their department or hall and missing such an invitation without any reason is considered insubordination. In case of guilt, the student can incur a very broad variety of punishments, including a reprimand, rustication, or expulsion, depending on the gravity of the supposed crime. Within fourteen days of being given the verdict, students have a right of appeal to the Council.
Nevertheless, the structure and the functioning of the CSDC are very curious. For instance, there is no guaranteed legal or independent representation for students. Although the Vice-Chancellor may co-opt two student representatives, they are present at the discretion of the same authority that is in charge of the committee. And the implications of this are clear to any honest-thinking person.
In addition, the quorum of meetings is only one-third of the members, and the absence of primarily concerned officers does not make proceedings invalid, which also causes doubts regarding the integrity of procedures.
The rules further state that the university is dedicated to the full support of constitutional rights of its members, and that students are allowed to express dissent, as long as it is peaceful and non-disruptive. However, the disciplinary framework appears to be more control-oriented than fair. The boundary between misconduct and reasonable conduct looks to be thin. The terms used, such as “unruly behaviour”, “disturbance of peace” and “unauthorised demonstration”, are all vaguely defined, and thus the University has a lot of leeway to crack down on protests.
Without question, the legal and procedural power of the CSDC is, ultimately, unambiguous, calling up the picture of the one who is the victim, the plaintiff, the judge and executioner at the same time. The moral legitimacy of the CSDC is increasingly called into question. When a system that was set up to enforce discipline starts to suppress communication, disagreement and student activism, then it should be referred to as what it has become, a tool of control rather than correction. It is important to know what the SDC is on paper, but also important to face what it does in practice.
The SDC and the principles of Natural Justice
The legal principle of Natural Justice can be summed up with two maxims: Nemo judex in causa sua, which translates to ” no one should be a judge in their own cause” and Audi alteram partem, which translates to “hear the other side”.
Basically, natural justice entails the duty to act fairly in arbitration and to allow for this, natural justice calls for the need to limit bias and also grant a fair hearing to all involved parties before a verdict is given. As Lord Denning rightfully said, “Justice must be rooted in confidence and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: ‘The judge was biased’.”
A look at the trend of the institution of the SDC in its operation is a look at the trend of how the principles of natural justice and fairness have thinned out completely from disciplinary actions.
In the first maxim about one being a judge in a matter that they are a party to, this is one of the major shortfalls of the SDC. As in many instances, issues that get to appear before the SDC involve cases where the school management has prejudged a person to be in violation of what the management believes is right.
A noteworthy example is the persecution of Kunle Adebanjo for his article highlighting the pressing issues in the hall needing immediate attention and how the focus of the University should be on that, before other issues. In this instance, the management charged him to the SDC over a claim of having “put the name of the school to disrepute”.
Quite ironically, he, like every other student in similar situations, was made to face an SDC composed almost wholly of members of the school management whom he was alleged to have offended. This goes contrary to the principle against bias because it gives the SDC the outlook of a prejudiced court, and rightly so. Meanwhile, 9 years later, the issues raised by Kunle Adebanjo still persist, and perhaps more lamentable than ever.
On the principle of fair hearing, the SDC also historically has fallen short in this regard. While in principle the students are said to be able to defend themselves, in practice, what we have is a panel of predetermined guilt and it seems that all formalities are optical calculations to a predetermined answer. There are also reports that a student representative is only allowed to be present in the final sitting when the verdict is being read, while in the so-called fact-finding and the investigation sitting, the student representative is not invited. Furthermore, students do not enjoy voting representation on the board nor are they usually afforded proper legal representation to defend their position.
And like Lord Denning has said, what you have is a student community who has no trust in the SDC but rather perceives it as an axe dangling by a thread over their heads and ever ready to split their heads open. This is seen even for offences like being a counterpart to a discussion that involved your roommate’s post on social media rightfully highlighting the failing of facilities in her hall of residence.
That is not an atmosphere for intellectual flourishing but rather one reminiscent of the renowned George Orwell’s “1984” where you have Big Brother through the ironically named Ministry of Love reengineering all free thinking to conform only with its own “right thinking”. How more dystopian when we consider our great school anthem speaking of the freedom for a mind able to know, able to think.
SDC as a Tool of Suppression
Though the Central Student Disciplinary Committee (CSDC) is introduced in the Student Handbook as an institution that aims at maintaining order and enforcing the values of integrity in the university community, its usage in the recent past paints a different picture. The CSDC, which was initially intended to punish unambiguous instances of academic and social misconduct, has gradually been transformed into a tool of silencing dissent, particularly when the latter is expressed in the form of protest against university management.
This evolution is represented by various cases, like the FreeMote case, the cases of Kunle Adebanjo and Ojo Aderemi and now, the case of the UI3—Aduwo, Nice, and Mide, all of recent history. Their experiences, especially that of Aduwo and Mide, who faced the Central SDC on Monday, July 14, show how quickly the Committee can be set in motion against student activists. Their alleged crime? Gross misconduct, particularly Unruly behaviour, which usually reads as a blanket term for being involved in, or even carrying out any activity that points to dissent against the university. The University has used its disciplinary apparatus to target the students who had the consciousness to speak rather than addressing the reason for the protest.
What is even more disturbing about this situation is the fact that there is ambiguity about what constitutes misconduct, which is intentional. The Handbook cites terms such as unruly behaviour, disturbance of peace and unauthorised demonstration as disciplinary offences. Who determines these terms? What constitutes a disturbance? What is meant by unruly behaviour in the face of dissent in a university which also professes to respect the right to peaceful expression and association and teaches students to do so?
Lack of clear definitions leaves a broad interpretive gap, which can be used to penalise students not based on what they did, but on their own assumption, and an imaginative stretch of what their actions symbolise. In the summoning letter handed to the victims, the school accused them of “disrupting the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected executives of the Students Union”, carrying ”placards with scandalous inscriptions against the school fees increment.” It added further “if this is true, your actions constitute an act of grave misconduct, particularly unruly behaviour in the presence of the Vice Chancellor and other members of the University Management.”
The effect is a chilling effect on students’ right of expression. Any student who contemplates organising or joining collective action has the threat of rustication, suspension, or expulsion hanging like a noose over his or her head. The CSDC no longer seems to be a place where rules are justly enforced, but rather it has become the judicial wing of institutional fear. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the composition of the Committee is completely under the control of university management. The student is always structurally disadvantaged since the Chairperson of the body is the Vice-Chancellor, and all the voting members are staff representatives.
Practice even negates the guarantee of a fair hearing in the Handbook. Students can be permitted to defend themselves, but are not always informed of their rights in detail. They are frequently tried by panels where they have no representation, and are judged by people who are also complainants and decision-makers. It is a repressive architecture that doesn’t look like it is aimed at finding truth or balance.
The Need for Reform, a Vibrant Student Union and a Student Judicial Council
With Aduwo and Mide having appeared before the Central Student Disciplinary Committee (CSDC) on Monday, July 14th, the response of the University of Ibadan Students Union (UISU) has been unconvincing. The Union has only released a lacklustre statement, with only a wanting display of solidarity since announcing their appearance before the CSDC. This is unlike the reaction of other organisations and bodies—NANS inclusive—that have made strong statements, condemning the persecution of the UI3 and calling for true justice.
This is not only disappointing. It is also dangerous. When two students are subjected to sanctions that may change the course of their lives because they championed a cause that concerns every student, the failure of the body charged with the responsibility of representing the students is tantamount to abdication. The retreat by the Union begs a very basic question; when the Students Union fails to protect students against institutional overreach, then who will?
It is important to recall that just last session, the student body, through collective resistance and negotiation, compelled the University management to expressly promise that no student would be victimised for participating in the protests against the fee hike. That assurance was not given lightly—it was the hard-won outcome of student resolve in the face of repression. If the current Students’ Union, and by extension the entire student community, stands by while Aduwo and Mide are subjected to disciplinary action for their role in that same struggle, it would be nothing short of a betrayal. It would amount to spitting in the face of last year’s struggle—a mockery of the sacrifice and courage that students displayed to secure that commitment from the University.
Even more troubling is that Aduwo, Mide, and Nice stepped into a vacuum left by the Union itself. When the administration announced outrageous increments that threatened the academic future of countless students, the Students’ Union executives chose silence. It was these three students who rose to speak, protest, and mobilise—not for personal gain, but on behalf of the voiceless majority whose education was on the line. For this, they deserve anything but condemnation.
No one is asking the Union to defend every student who appears before the SDC. But it is right to expect it to defend students who are being victimised for doing what the Union itself failed to do: represent the people who were later reduced to beggars to pay for school fees. Silence now would be complicity—and history will not forget.
The more fundamental structural weakness revealed by this crisis is the lack of a Students’ Union Judicial Council. The disciplinary procedures in the university, as they now exist, are virtually performed by the staff and administrative authorities. Students lack formal representation during the fact-finding, investigation and even hearing phases of disciplinary procedures. Only at the last stage, i.e. at the Central SDC, where sanctions are determined, are two students co-opted onto the Committee at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor. Not by right. Not by vote. But by discretion. This token representation cannot be termed as a meaningful representation. It is a show, not a protection.
To be a just disciplinary system, it has to be inclusive. These decisions should involve the students who are most impacted in the process, not as spectators at the end, but as participants at the start. We recommend a Students Union Judicial Council which will have the power to: arbitrate and inquire into student cases, provide advisory opinions or recommendations, monitor and report on equity in SDC proceedings, and serve as a guard against disciplinary powers weaponisation. Far from being baseless or pride-driven, this suggestion draws its strength from well-considered judgment and substantiated facts. It is offered in line with the Nigerian Universities Act 2003, which mandates university administrations nationwide to allow students to participate in processes that have to do with student affairs.
This is not something new. Elsewhere in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world, judicial councils that are peer-led act as safeguards against misuse. They make sure that students are not judged in forums where all the voices are heard except theirs.
More generally, the SDC composition needs to be looked into by the school Senate. No committee which adjudicates on students should be run without at least equal representation of students and staff. The University should at least make sure that disciplinary authority is not absolute and unchecked.
The fight of the UI3 is not only about the deeds of three students— it is about the rights of everyone. The issue of reforming the disciplinary process is concerned with making sure that no student faces it alone. And it starts with a Students’ Union that does not forget that it was elected to not play safe, but to defend its people.
Until then, the Union is not advancing—it is receding and our great alma mater advances as a Leninist Republic
