Expelled for Serving: Akiso Benjamin Awaits His Day in Court
This Saturday, 24th October 2026, the High Court Civil Division at Twed Towers will deliver a judgment that could determine whether Akiso Benjamin returns to Kyambogo University to complete his degree or remains a student whose education was cut short by expulsion.
But this case is about more than one young man’s education. It is about what happens when a student leader refuses to stop speaking for the people who elected him. It is about the limits of university power, the rights of students, and the price young people pay when they challenge those in authority. Akiso’s troubles began long before he became Guild President.
As a student activist and supporter of the National Unity Platform, he was stopped from participating in the Kyambogo Guild elections. The university did not, in his view, provide convincing reasons for excluding him. The students responded by threatening to boycott the election unless he was allowed back on the ballot. The university suspended the election for months.
Eventually, Akiso was nominated, campaigned, and won. During his campaign, he described Vice Chancellor Professor Eli Katunguka and his administration as the oppressors, and the students as the oppressed. The description stuck. Students began calling him “Oppressed”, a name that has followed him to this day.
After winning, Akiso became a member of the University Council, representing the students who had elected him. But his new position came with expectations. He was reportedly asked, through the Vice Chancellor’s office, to apologise for his campaign statements and to understand that things were different now that he was part of university leadership.
He was expected to stop behaving like an activist and conduct himself like the other members of management. In effect, he was being asked to abandon the very spirit in which he had been elected. He was expected to move from challenging the administration to accommodating it. Akiso refused. He remained what people on the street call “solid”. Then came the surcharge issue.
For years, students had complained about the surcharge imposed by the university for late tuition payment. It was one of the issues Akiso had promised to challenge during his campaign.
As examinations approached, he wrote to the Vice Chancellor on 15 April 2025, requesting that the surcharge be suspended and that students who had paid at least 70 per cent of their tuition be allowed to sit their examinations. The Vice Chancellor did not respond.
On 22 April, Akiso called a General Assembly at the Students’ Centre to update students and hear their views on the way forward. Students gathered, expecting to deliberate on an issue that affected their education and their pockets. Instead, police arrived and dispersed them with tear gas.
In a video that circulated widely, Akiso survived being shot by a police officer. Akiso and 19 other students were arrested, taken to Jinja Police Station and later remanded to Luzira Prison.
On 28 April 2025, Akiso returned to court for a bail application hearing; while still in the dock, he was served with a suspension letter from the Vice Chancellor. He was eventually granted bail.
The students subsequently went to the High Court seeking an interim order to stop their suspension and allow them to sit their examinations. Justice Acelam directed the university to proceed with the ongoing examinations without these students; he ruled that the affected students be given a fair internal hearing. Those found innocent could then be allowed to sit special examinations. What followed raised even more serious questions.
The Students Affairs and Welfare Committee heard the matter, found Akiso and the others guilty, and forwarded its report to the University Council. The other suspended students were given an opportunity to appear before Council and defend themselves. Some were suspended for a semester, while others received suspensions lasting an entire academic year. Akiso was treated differently.
He was expelled. More troublingly, he was not given the same opportunity to appear before the University Council and defend himself, despite being a member of that very Council as the elected student representative under the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act.
The Guild President who had campaigned on behalf of students was now outside the university, unable to continue his education. Expelled for, among other things, disrupting peace and insubordination.
The significance of this cannot be overstated. When a public university expels its Guild President under such circumstances, the consequences extend beyond the individual. A Guild President is not simply another student. He carries a mandate. Students elect someone because they want their concerns raised. If the person entrusted with that responsibility can be expelled after challenging the administration over matters affecting students, it tells the rest, including those who come after, that there are limits to how far they can go in representing those who elected you.
Universities should be places where young people learn to question authority, challenge unfair decisions, and demand accountability. They cannot teach students about justice in lectures while making it difficult for them to exercise their rights in the very institutions where they study.
For Akiso, this case is about his education and his future. For the students of Kyambogo, it is about their voice and their ability to hold their university accountable. For the wider public, it is a test of whether institutions entrusted with educating young people can also respect their rights. Let us hope that the court will do the just thing.
Featured Photo: Internet Photo
