Courts awards N20m damages against Unilorin for denying 2 students Ph.D awards

Ilorin:  The Federal High Court sitting in Ilorin on Monday ordered the University  of Ilorin to pay damages of N20 million to two Ph.D candidates denied the awards for 10 years.

Also,the university was mandated to commence immediately the process of examining the thesis that one of the plaintiffs had submitted since November 2001 leading to the award of his Ph.D within the next six months.

The court gave the order in a suit filed separately by the duo, Messers  Jolayemi Ademola Ayodeji and Olufemi Ibukun Dunmade, both in the Faculty of Arts, against the institution.

Justice Bello Aliyu, while delivering the judgement, observed that the university was oppressive with the manner it handled the doctorate degree programmes of the plaintiffs whose careers were adversely affected by the action.

Aliyu noted that Dunmade had proved that he completed all that he needed to do as a Ph.D candidate as attested to by the correspondences between him, his project supervisor and the faculty, only for the university to deny him his rights.

The court observed that the plaintiffs, who were among the lecturers sacked by the university, were victimised as unionists “considered as uncompromising critics of the administration of the defendant’’.

The judge said it was in furtherance of that agenda that the defendant refused to award the degree to the plaintiffs in order to further victimise them.

While Ayodeji’s  thesis  was supposed to have been examined since Nov. 2001, that of Dunmade had already been done since February of the same year but neither of them was addressed by the university authority.

In the judgment, the university was ordered to pay N10 million to Ayodeji and commence the examination process of his thesis to award him his degree within six months. Dunmade, on his part, is to be paid N10 million and awarded his degree forthwith.

The judges aid: “It is hereby declared that from the circumstances of this case,the two plaintiffs are not responsible for the delay in the conclusion of the Ph.D as claimed by the defendant.

‘The sum of N10 million only is awarded to each of the plaintiffs as general and exemplary damages for the oppressive manner the defendant delayed the conclusion of their Ph.D degree programmes.”

Mr Dayo Akinlaja represented the two plaintiffs while Mr Kehinde Eleja was the counsel for the university. (NAN).

Culled from Vanguard