Human rights activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has condemned the University of Abuja after campus security personnel denied him entry to attend an event organised by the Students’ Union Government (SUG). Sowore, who was formally invited by the SUG led by Yusuf Tobi Jamiu, described the university’s action as a violation of freedom of expression and academic independence.
According to Sowore, he was scheduled to participate in an interactive session with students when he was stopped at the university gate by campus security. In a video obtained by Legal Observer News, the officers stated that the university management had declared his visit “unacceptable” and claimed the SUG lacked approval to host him.
In a statement titled “The University as a Joke: My University of Abuja Experience,” Sowore recounted how he was compelled to sit outside the university gate in silent protest after being refused entry.
“I arrived from the airport straight to the campus. My advance team had already sensed something wrong — the Students’ Union President was unreachable, and the venue was deserted. Soon, security officials at the gate told me the management had cancelled the event and that my visit was not permitted,” Sowore said.
The activist narrated that, while sitting outside the gate, he witnessed a female student being denied entry over “improper dressing,” a moment he said reflected the larger moral and institutional decay in Nigerian higher education.
“As I sat on a broken chair, I watched a female student stopped from entering for ‘indecent dressing.’ When I asked if the university bought clothes for its students, the embarrassed security officials let her in,” he said.
He later met with the SUG President, who apologised but appeared helpless. Sowore said the incident left him disheartened but unsurprised, noting that student leadership in Nigeria had grown increasingly subservient to university management.
Sowore criticised what he described as the death of intellectual freedom and independence in Nigerian universities, accusing university authorities of suppressing dissent and discouraging students from engaging with critical ideas.
“What I saw at the University of Abuja was not an institution of learning but a graveyard of courage and ideas. Our universities are dying not because of a lack of funding, but because of a lack of integrity, independence, and freedom,” he said.
“Nigerian universities are dead. What remains is the struggle to resurrect them.”
The incident has reignited debates about academic freedom, students’ rights, and freedom of association in Nigeria. Legal analysts note that Section 39 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of expression and to receive or impart ideas without interference, while Section 40 protects freedom of assembly and association.
By preventing a student body from hosting an invited guest, analysts argue, the university may have violated these constitutional rights and undermined the principle of university autonomy guaranteed under Nigeria’s National Policy on Education.
As of press time, the University of Abuja management has not issued an official statement addressing the incident.
