The Education Rights Campaign has called for the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of all students suspended by Nasarawa State University, Keffi (NSUK), over allegations that they planned to stage a protest against the university authorities.

They also condemned the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Sa’adatu Hassan Liman, for disregarding the plea by Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, to recall the suspended students.

In a statement jointly signed by ERC’s Deputy National Coordinator, Ogunjimi Isaac, and National Mobilisation Officer, Adaramoye Michael (Lenin), they demanded that the university authorities and the Nigeria Police Force be held accountable for unlawfully detaining the students.

They described the suspension, based solely on the alleged plan to protest, as unacceptable and a violation of the students’ fundamental rights to free expression and assembly.

The group argued that the suspension was unjustified since the planned protest never happened.

They called on Governor Sule to take concrete action to resolve the issue, rather than merely appealing to the Vice-Chancellor, whom they criticised for displaying extreme insensitivity.

The statement read: “We demand the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of all suspended students of NSUK. The reason for their suspension, which is that they were planning a protest, is unacceptable and an affront to their fundamental rights to free expression and assembly.

“In any case, the fact is that the planned protest never took place. So, the official basis for their suspension is flawed. Shekwogaza Godiya Sanda, Timothy Manasseh, Asan Ukeyima and others have been wrongly suspended since December 9, 2024.

“Notably, before the suspension, many of these students had spent days languishing in police cells on the order of the school authorities. This is a clear revelation of the atrocities of Sa’adatu Hassan Liman, the Vice-Chancellor, who is misnamed as ‘sweet mother of NSUK’ but unleashes terrible policies on students.

“For instance, she cancelled the last students’ union election, leaving students without any democratic representation. Also, she introduced an exploitative policy of forcing students to pay N5,000 for each failed course under the dubiousness of a ‘third semester’ programme. It was this policy that students planned to organise a protest against in August 2024, before she handed the student activists over to the Police for arrest and torture.

“We demand that all those culpable in the arrest and torture be made to answer for their crimes.”