Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, which is
owned by the federal government is one of the first
generation universities in Nigeria, and it prides itself
as the leader among other universities in the
country.

In fact, the alumni of the university often claim that
OAU is the most beautiful campus in Africa.
Founded in 1961 as the University of Ife by the
regional government of Western Nigeria and
renamed Obafemi Awolowo University on 12 of May
1987, in honour of the first premier of the Western
Region of Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, OAU is
ranked as the most productive university in Nigeria
by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

The campus has an eye-catching landscape built
on about 5,000 acres out of a total of 13,000 acres
of land belonging to the university. Unfortunately,
some of the facilities that once portrayed OAU as a
beautiful campus, especially the students’ halls of
residence, are decomposing and the rot bedevilling
the university is now enormous. The beauty of the
OAU students’ halls of residences has given way to
decay due to neglect.

There are 8 halls of residence including Fajuyi,
Awolowo, Angola and E.T.F for male students, while
Moremi, Akintola, Alumni and Mozambique halls of
residence are for female students. Signs of wear
and tear were very visible on the long stretch of
buildings when Daily Trust visited.

The living condition of the students in these halls of
residence is pathetic. At the Awolowo Hall, our
correspondent observed that the toilets were in bad
state in most of the blocks. In one of the toilets, the
closet had broken and the bathrooms reeked of
fermented urine. The students lamented that the
university authority was not carrying out renovation
on the hostels. The motto of the university is, “For
learning and culture” but owing to the bad condition
of their hostels, the students have parodied this
motto to “For learning and suffering.”

Mr Oladapo Rasheed, a 200 level student of the
Linguistics department is the General Secretary of
Awolowo Hall of residence. He told Daily Trust that
bedbugs have colonised the hostel “Our mattresses
are full of bedbugs owing to non-fumigation. We
brought our mattresses from our respective
homes, but over the time, the bedbug penetrated
the mattresses because the environment is dirty. I
once watched the movie titled prison break and the
prison that I saw in that movie is better than our
hostels in Ife.”

A 400 level student of Psychology, Mr Amos Ajileye
said he has spent 4 years on the campus, and that
he has never witnessed renovation of the hostels
since he was admitted to OAU “I have spent 4
years in this university and I have never seen any
renovation on our hostels, except the cleaners that
usually come to sweep the floor and they don’t
come during weekends. This is too bad and we
want the authority to renovate the hostels,” he said.
Another 300 level student of Religious Studies, Mr
Ifedapo Akinola also lamented the rot in the
infrastructural facilities.

According to him, “There is serious infrastructural
decay in our hostels. The condition of our toilets
and the tank where we are fetching water is too
bad. A section of the hostel collapsed recently, and
that is the place where we wash and bath. No one
was there when it collapsed. It would have killed
some of us if any of us had been present . Should
the management wait until we are killed before they
would repair our hostel? It is better they do the
repairs now.”

Mr Nwanegwo Uzor Amaka, a 400 level Civil
Engineering student, also said their hostels could be
mistaken for prison yards. Nwanegwo said
“Prisoners are better than the condition here. I stay
in block 5.We have no toilet and more than 10
students stay in a room meant for two students.
We have 10 rooms on the block making 100
students in that block. Yet, there is no toilet for us.
We bath outside because the condition of our
bathroom is very bad.”

At the female hostel, the situation was similar to
that of the male students hostels, in terms of
infrastructural decay, but the environment was not
too dirty. The female students were taking care of
the surroundings of their hostels, unlike their male
counterparts who relied solely on the cleaners to
help them sweep the surrounding.

At Mozambique Hall, a 200 level student of Public
Administration, Miss Adetayo Adetorera Anna is the
hall chairperson ,and she was not happy about the
living conditions in the hostels. She said, “The
condition of our hostels is not pleasant. Our hostels
are overcrowded. Take for instance, 24 students
share one toilet. We fight to get water. We are
battling with bedbugs. In fact, it was our hall warden
that helped us to fumigate one of the rooms
recently, when the issue of bedbugs became
unbearable, and we had to go and report to the hall
management.”

At Moremi Hall of residence, Miss Babanumi
Oluwadamilola, a 300 level Law student also
expressed worry over the living condition in their
hostels. She was particular about the issue of toilets
and urged the authority of the university to act on
time and fix the infrastructures at the hostels. “Our
toilets are in very bad shape and as a matter of
fact, the hostels need repair. We are suffering
seriously. We are not enjoying electricity and other
facilities and it should not be so. Actually, the
cleaners are trying, but there is a little they can
clean on the rotten facilities,” Oluwadamilola said
.
A 500 level Chemical Engineering student, Mr.
Omotayo Akande is the President of OAU Student
Union and he is not oblivious of the horrible living
condition in the hostels. Akande is not relenting in
the struggle for the welfare of the students.
Speaking with Daily Trust, the Student Union
President said that there is need to renovate the
hostels and guard against overcrowding.
His words, “You can see the level of decay in our
overpopulated hostels on the campus, that is
supposedly the most beautiful campus in Africa.
Under normal circumstances , a room is supposed
to be occupied by the number of wardrobes you
find there, and there are 2 wardrobes in most of the
rooms. However, the rooms are allocated to 6
students officially, while squatters would also join
the legal occupants.

Students are complaining of bedbugs. There are no
good toilets and we are subjected to a condition that
is not favourable to learning. In fact, we are afraid
of an outbreak of diseases on this campus.”
“We have met the university authority and pleaded
with them to take our welfare serious, but they
haven’t done anything. I have spent five years on
this campus and they have never renovated any of
the hostels since I came to OAU. Imagine, OAU
hostels cannot boast of stable power supply and
potable water, yet, they said ours is the most
beautiful campus in Africa. As student Union
leaders, the students are harassing us, blaming us
for not confronting the management over this
issue, but we are helpless since the university
authority turned deaf ears to our cries,” Akande
lamented.

Reacting to the development, the Public Relation
Officer of the university, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju
faulted the students’ claims as he blamed them for
abusing the facilities in their hostels. He said the
students overcrowded the hostels and
overstretched the facilities.
“Everything that the students told you is not true.
They caused the problem for themselves by
overcrowding the hostels more than the capacity of
the facilities in those buildings. In a situation where
the university authority allocates a room for only
four students, we will eventually realise that 12
students are living in that room and that puts
unnecessary pressure on the facilities. They
usually accommodate squatters in the rooms ,and it
would be difficult for the university authority to
chase out the squatters when the occupants of the
rooms are not complaining. The students should
stop blaming the university authority for the problem
they caused themselves. On the issue of
renovation, I can assure you that the university
authority usually renovates the hostels during long
vacations, and the students will meet the hostels
neat.But they would dirty it within a few weeks of
resumption. You know the students, if we allocate
dirty hostels to them, they would protest. So, the
hostels are usually neat at the beginning of the
session but our students are in the habit of
misusing the facilities in the hostels,” Olanrewaju
said.

They should shut it.

Look at the picture. Who owns that bed spread hanging there?. Can't they contribute to have a proper drying line to dry their laundries instead of hanging their wet laundries on the corridors?.

If they start taking extra fees to maintain their hostels, they would start a riot.
Why don't they team up together and make a palace out of what they have been given.
If everyone in each room donates N500 a month, it should be enough to fix a problem every month but
I bet you that these guys would rather waste N500 than donate it to better themselves.

Its not all about renovation, its also about maintenance.

I used to live in a hostel so nobody should tell me nada. We all contributed to have our grasses cut, our sewage removed, our NEPA light meter fixed, GeePee tank replaced etc and we kept record of it just in case.

One should rather spend N500 on prevention than N2150 on cure....and you are not even sure how long it will last before onset of another disease.