The Speak Out for Justice Advocacy Ltd/Gte (SOJA) has appealed to the management of Madonna University, Elele Campus, Rivers State, to reconsider the expulsion of a final-year nursing student and the one-year suspension of 14 others over a viral social media video, warning that disciplinary measures should not unnecessarily destroy the academic and professional futures of young people.
The human rights advocacy organisation urged the university to embrace proportionality, fairness and compassion in resolving the controversy, while maintaining that students must be held accountable for breaches of professional ethics and institutional regulations.
In a press statement dated October 9, 2026, SOJA’s Founder and Executive Director, Hameed Ajibola Jimoh, said the university should consider less severe disciplinary measures where appropriate, including formal warnings, ethics training, counselling and supervised remediation.
The appeal comes amid growing public reactions to the university’s decision to expel one 500-level nursing student and suspend 14 others for one year over a video showing nursing students dancing within the institution’s teaching hospital.
The video, which circulated widely on social media, was associated with a trend featuring healthcare workers dancing in clinical environments and reportedly carried the caption, “No fall sick o, na Gen Z full hospital now.”
