The suit, marked FHC/IB/CS/93/2025, is pending before the Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan and is brought pursuant to an application for judicial review.
A law graduate of the University of Ibadan, Mr. Kayode Bello, has sued the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, the Council of Legal Education, the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School, the University of Ibadan, and several senior university officials at the Federal High Court, Ibadan, over what he described as the prolonged and unlawful denial of his readmission into the Nigerian Law School.
The suit, marked FHC/IB/CS/93/2025, is pending before the Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan and is brought pursuant to an application for judicial review.
Mr. Bello, who is the applicant, is asking the court to compel the Minister of Education, the Council of Legal Education, the Nigerian Law School authorities, and the University of Ibadan officials to formally respond to his repeated requests for intervention over his Law School readmission denial, dated August 17, 2022.
Those joined as respondents include the Minister of Education; Dr. Tunji Alausa; the Council of Legal Education; the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School; Prof. Issa Ayattou Ciroma; the University of Ibadan; the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kayode Adebowale; the Dean of the Faculty of Law; Prof. John Akintayo; Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose; the Students’ Union of the University of Ibadan; and its President, Mr. Covenant Odedele, among others.
In the motion on notice filed under Order 34 of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules, 2019, Bello is seeking an order mandating the listed respondents to send him their responses, comments, and actions taken on his request for intervention regarding the refusal to readmit him into the Nigerian Law School, “without further delay.”
He is also asking the court to order the Council of Legal Education and the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School to formally communicate to him after the expiration of the expulsion imposed on him by the Council in 2017, which he says has lapsed.
Additionally, Bello wants the court to compel the University of Ibadan Students’ Union and its President to provide him with details of steps taken by the union in its intervention efforts on his Law School readmission since August 2022.
In another relief, the applicant is asking the court to declare that Prof. John Akintayo and Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose denied him fair hearing in matters connected to his travel to Switzerland for an academic programme during his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan.
He argues that the facts surrounding that issue, along with accompanying documents, constitute fresh and material evidence relating to his expulsion from the Nigerian Law School in 2017.
Bello is also seeking ₦100 million in general damages against all the respondents jointly for what he described as denial, delay, psychological trauma, loss of time, hardship and stress arising from the failure to allow him complete his Law School programme after the expiration of his expulsion.
The applicant further recalled that the Federal High Court in Ibadan, presided over by Justice Evelyn Maha, had earlier ordered that his Master’s student portal at the University of Ibadan be reopened to enable him complete his registration and graduation process.
However, Bello disclosed that he has since filed Form 48, a notice of consequences for disobedience of court order, against the University authorities for allegedly failing to comply with the directive to reopen his student portal.