They had made the headlines in 1998 under the dictatorial regime of the then Head of State General Sanni Abacha. Students at the University of Ilorin were tired of the deplorable living and learning conditions they were being subjected to. It was a little thing that formed the last straw which broke the camel's back; the epileptic power supply chose to go off at a time when all students were glued to a Super Eagles' match.

They made headlines when the protests began. The school was shut down. As part of a massive clamp-down on student activism, hundreds of students were arrested, and some recommended for expulsion. But when the headlines faded and the limelight moved to other issues, Rasheedat Adeshina and Lanre Akinola, both student activists at the time, continued to live in the reality of the protests, being denied their University degrees for about fifteen years- a high price to pay simply for standing up for students' rights. These are their stories. Although Adeshina finished from the University of Ilorin in 2000/2001 session, her certificate says she graduated in the 2014/2015 session. She spent the thirteen years in-between fighting in court for a certificate she had already qualified for. Hers should have been a simple matter. On the night of the protest, she was not even in the school premises. As the then Assistant Secretary General of the Student Union, her face was an easily recognisable one; One that had not been missed by a lecturer who shared a cab with her as she left campus that evening.

However, that same lecturer was on the investigation panel that recommended her expulsion for involvement in the protest. "We were later invited before the SDC," she told Saturday School Life, "but did not appear because we felt it would just be a rubber stamp of the recommendation of the investigation panel. We proceeded to court to get an injunction to stop the SDC and our prayers were answered before the court." That proved to be the first of many trips to court. In the midst of all these, the Prof. Abdulraheem Oba led administration increased the school fees, sparking another round of protests, this time with Adeshina fully involved. "The school administration mobilized the internal security of the university and also the police to crush the peaceful protest of the students and also ordered the arrest of the students. Many students were in fact arrested, including some students from other universities who had come to express solidarity with us. They were imprisoned at the Oke Kura Maximum Security Prison in Ilorin for more than three months. I narrowly escaped being arrested, but was declared wanted by the police and had to go completely underground," she narrated.

After the release of the incarcerated students, Adeshina was suspended from the University. With the aid of John Olushola Baiyashea & Co, a reputable legal firm in Ilorin, she again went to court to challenge the suspension and won. But the University Authorities refused to abide by the court order. She said: "I had to go back to court to get a committal before I could be allowed to sit for exams. Whenever I had an exam, I would go into the exam hall with the court order. My final year examination in the year 2000 started and ended in this manner. Whenever anybody tried to stop me, I would take out the court order and asked the person to sign that he/she was disobeying the court order."

Interestingly enough, despite these difficulties, Adeshina passed all her courses without a single carry-over, but her victory would be a long time coming. Just like Lanre Akinola. As a member of the Student Representative Council then, he was involved in a series of protests and rallies that took place on Campus on June 4th and 5th, 1998. Just like Adeshina, he also was recommended, for expulsion. It was a court injunction that saved their academic careers. However, despite successfully completing his studies in 1999, the University administration refused to release his final statement of result and degree without any justifiable reason.

In 2001, President Olusegun Obasanjo set up a committee known as the "Resolution Committee on Politically Victimized and Rusticated Students" headed by the then Special Adviser to the President on Education, Chief S.K. Babalola. With this intervention, the University claimed to have pardoned both students but still withheld their results.

"Following the refusal of the University to release our final statements of result and degrees after the intervention of the committee and despite our repeated demands, we went back to the Federal High Court in 2004 asking the court to compel the University to release our final statements of result and degrees. Late Justice Chukwura Nnamani of the Federal High Court, Ilorin on June 21, 2006 ruled in our favour and granted all our prayers including award of damages."

The University appealed against the judgment of the Federal High Court, Ilorin at the Court of Appeal, Ilorin. The University lost again and appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court on June 6, 2014 (Adeshina's case) and July 11, 2014 (Akinola's case) ruled against the University and upheld the judgments of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin and by implication the Federal High Court, Ilorin. It was a trying time for Akinola. "For many years I did not work," he said "I relied on friends, family and well-wishers for survival. When I was able to find work, my salary was lower than those who had degrees." But he says he would go through it all over again. "I won't do anything different. I will repeat the same thing all over. I have no regret whatsoever."

Adeshina also feels the same way. Now married with children, activism is still her first love. "Struggle is my life," she says, "outside struggle I am nothing. I wine and dine in struggle. My family lives in struggle, my husband is an activists and this brings a perfect harmony to my life and struggle.

Both Akinola and Adeshina worry about the sleeping giant that student activism has become in campuses across the country. "There is obviously a very huge collapse in the level of student activism. But this is not unconnected with the general collapse in the radical politics not only in Nigeria but also internationally. Student union is no longer independent, student union leaders are no longer ready to sacrifice" said Adeshina.

Akinola echoes a similar tune. "The student activism now cannot be compared with the time when I was a student activist in terms of campaign for better welfare conditions on campus, campaign against commercialization and privatization of education and other anti-poor policies of the government. Unlike in the past, most of the present day students' leaders are in the office for their personal interests." Both comrades collected their certificates in November, 2015. Akinola had waited sixteen years, Adeshina, fourteen.