SUNTV Global Channel | December 29, 2025
A University of Ibadan (UI) law graduate and rights activist, Kayode Bello, has approached the Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan, Oyo State, seeking an order compelling the Nigerian Law School (NLS) to readmit him nearly eight years after his expulsion.
The suit, marked FHC/IB/CS/93/2025, is being heard before Justice Evelyn Maha and has been fixed for January 27, 2026.
In the action filed against the Council of Legal Education, Bello contends that his continued exclusion from the Nigerian Law School is unlawful, unjustified, and contrary to the institution’s own Code of Conduct for Students. He argued that nothing in the code permanently bars his readmission after the expiration of the disciplinary sanction imposed on him in 2017.
According to court documents, Bello claimed that fresh facts and material evidence have emerged which fundamentally weaken the basis of his expulsion from the Law School. Central to his argument is an allegation that a former Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose, deliberately withheld a pardon letter issued in his favour—an omission he said significantly shaped the outcome of the disciplinary process that followed.
Bello further alleged that only a file copy, rather than the original version of the pardon letter, was eventually released to him during his Master’s programme at the University of Ibadan.
The applicant recalled that he was expelled from the Nigerian Law School in 2017 after raising complaints over what he described as poor learning facilities at the Abuja campus of the institution. He also told the court that the Law School authorities allegedly ignored a subsisting court order which permitted him to sit for the Bar final examinations in the same year.
Court filings indicate that all respondents have been duly served with the Motion on Notice, the Order granting leave for service, and the Hearing Notice dated December 5, 2025.
In the suit, Bello is asking the court to compel the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa; the Council of Legal Education; the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School, Prof. Issa Ayattou; the University of Ibadan; the Vice-Chancellor of UI, Prof. Kayode Adebowale; the Dean of the Faculty of Law; and Prof. John Akintayo to immediately respond to his formal request dated August 17, 2022, seeking intervention over his denied readmission.
He is also urging the court to mandate the Council of Legal Education and the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School to readmit him without further delay, having, according to him, fully served the term of his expulsion.
Additionally, Bello asked the court to compel the University of Ibadan Students’ Union and its President to account for steps allegedly taken on his behalf since August 2022 in relation to his Law School readmission efforts.
The applicant further sought a declaration that Prof. John Akintayo and Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose denied him fair hearing over issues connected to his travel to Switzerland for an academic programme while he was an undergraduate at UI—facts he described as fresh and material to his expulsion case.
Bello is also claiming ₦100 million in general damages against all respondents jointly for alleged denial of justice, psychological trauma, loss of time, hardship, and prolonged stress arising from what he described as deliberate institutional delays that have stalled his legal career since 2017.
Justice Maha had earlier ordered the reopening of Bello’s Master’s student portal at the University of Ibadan. However, Bello disclosed that he has now filed Form 48, formally notifying the respondents of the consequences of continued disobedience of the court’s order, in a bid to enable him complete his registration and graduate from the institution.
SUNTV Global Channel will continue to monitor and report developments in this case.
