About 200 students may have been expelled by the authorities of Covenant University, Cannanland, Ota, Ogun State, recently for what was described as “disregard of paramount core values.”
Frustrated and angered by the development, some of the affected students who gave account of what happened battled emotions while narrating their situations to Saturday Vanguard recently. They however pleaded with the school authorities to tamper justice with mercy in order to save their future.
Saturday Vanguard investigation revealed that out of the figure, about 126 were expelled for not attending the ‘departure service’, meant to sign off from the school after the end of the Semester and Matriculation of students on November 30. Five other students were thrown out for smoking while unconfirmed source said additional 60 got the same fate for violating other rules bordering on the University’s core values. A few others were given four weeks suspension for failure to sign the head count that was conducted a couple of weeks earlier.
A letter of expulsion signed by the Registrar, Ntia Ubong, a copy which was made available to Saturday Vanguard stated that the affected students contravened Chapter 1, section 30, page 40 of the 2010-2014 Student Handbook.
We gathered that the massive expulsion was predicated on the anger of the Chancellor, Bishop David Oyedepo who was said to have been infuriated after seeing students loitering around when they were supposed to be at the Chapel for the Departure Service.
He was said to have personally chased students to the Chapel and ordered for a search into all the halls and colleges to fish out those who did not attend the service.
Several attempts to get the school authorities comment on the issue proved abortive. The Instituion’s Corporate Affairs Head, Mr Igban Emmaunel also refused to comment as calls pulled through to him were unanswered and text messages not replied.
How it happenedA few of the affected students gave account of what happened to Saturday Vanguard at different points. The similar accounts go thus: “On November 30, the last day of the semester, preceding our December break, there was also a Matriculation for the 100 level students; in fact some students had their last semester exams on that day, some of them finished around 3:00pm while the matriculation started around 8am. Some students retired to their rooms to relax while some engaged in some other activities jubilating the end of the semester.