Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Summons Students’ Activist To Disciplinary Panel Over Social Media Comments

Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Summons Students’ Activist To Disciplinary Panel Over Social Media Comments.

Ayoola Babalola, who is also a journalist has several times criticised the management of the institution over what he refers to as violation of basic human rights, its refusal to deliver an academic system that is in tandem with the digital age and lack of compliance with global best practices.

The Nigerian Institute of Journalism has summoned a student activist, Ayoola Babalola, to a disciplinary panel over allegations of “unruly behavior” and “inciting comments” made on social media and offline.

Ayoola, who is also a journalist has several times criticised the management of the institution over what he refers to as violation of basic human rights, its refusal to deliver an academic system that is in tandem with the digital age and lack of compliance with global best practices.

Babalola Ayoola

Commenting on the matter, the secretary of the Take-it-Back movement Campus wing in Ogun State, Olatoye Clement said that the antics to victimise the students’ activist who was only expressing his constitutional rights will fail.

“We Take it Back Campus movement, are aware of the plans to bring Ayoola under oppressing victimization for expressing his rights and we shall resist it by all legal means available. The antics of the management are well known and they will fail,” Olatoye said.

Ayoola, who was arrested by the Department of State Services and detained at Ibara Prisons in January 2020, for his anti-Buhari articles in a campus magazine, upon receiving the invitation said he would be going to the panel with his lawyer.

Lately, the management of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism has been under the radar for several attacks on students’ rights to freely express themselves and associate.

These acts, many Nigerians have criticised and described as so demeaning of an institution that should conventionally promote freedom of expression and press.