26-year-old Romola Adeola has set a record in being the youngest person to obtain a Doctor of Laws degree (LLD) in the 30-year history of the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Furthermore, she is only the 2nd youngest person to achieve this in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, since its establishment 107 years ago. She distinguished herself by completing the LLD in under 3 years. During her undergraduate years at Lagos State University (LASU), she was the Best Student in International Law.
Romola’s relationship with the Centre for Human Rights began from her participation in the 2008 African Human Rights Moot Court Competition. In 2012, she was selected as a DAAD scholar to study for the LLM/MPhil degree in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa.
Romola Adeola graduated cum laude, earning two awards: the Kéba M’Baye award for the overall Best Dissertation and the Victor Dankwa prize for the Best Performance in the module: Human Rights in Africa. Her excellent record earned her admission to the Centre’s doctoral programme in 2013.
In her PhD thesis, she analyzed the obligation in article 10 of the African Union Convention in relation to the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa. She has given interviews, presented papers at international conferences and been the voice of the Centre on issues of internally displaced persons, migrants and refugees. .
During her time here, she led the Disability Rights Clinic and served as Alumni Coordinator. In this latter capacity, she led a campaign calling for the release of prominent Swazi human rights activist – Thulani Maseko, and raised funding to support his family.
