Olorunfemi Adeyeye, a student activist, has graduated from the University of Lagos seven years after being dismissed for planning and leading a major protest against poor campus infrastructure.
“It’s a testimony to the fact that consistency pays,” he told News Digest. “I got back and graduated without genuflecting on the altars of fallen gods despite pressure to do so.”
The institution dismissed Adeyeye along with some other students for engaging in the demonstrations that led to its closure in 2016 but reinstated him in January 2022.
Read Also:
Adeyeye was a 400-level Building student at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences when he was suspended, along with certain student leaders, mostly for his role in the 2016 protest that resulted in the school’s closure.
Adeyeye and other student leaders were protesting the poor welfare of students on campus in April 2016 when security operatives arrived to put an end to the movement.
The protest led the university administration to suspend the student union indefinitely.
While Adeyeye was first suspended, he was ultimately rusticated after he openly challenged the school’s administration on the student union’s protest.
In a Facebook post, which he shared on other social media platforms, Adeyeye referred to the University Senate as a “conglomeration of academic ignorami.”
Adeyeye was later charged with directing a delegation from the National Association of Nigerian Students—Save UNILAG Coalition—to disrupt events at the Dean of Student Affairs office on March 31, 2016.
Adeyeye received hundreds of congratulations after posting on Facebook on Monday that he had graduated from the university.
Adeyeye told the News Digest that the experience was “great” and that his graduation proves that hard work pays off.
“It’s a refreshing time; a time to refresh for the struggles in front of us. I feel great,” he added.
