Four months after Obafemi Awolowo University hosted the West African University Games (WAUG), the stadium lights installed at the sports centre have constantly been switched off at night, which has caused the main field and its environs to loom in darkness every night.
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Before hosting the tournament in December 2023, the stadium lights were installed to light up the sports centre, along with other construction and renovation activities that were put in place to host WAUG. But ever since the close of the West African University Games (WAUG), the lights have been constantly switched off every night.
Dilbert, a team member of OAU Giant, clarified that the lights had been switched off because no training takes place on the pitch from evening till night. ‘We don’t train at night, that is why the lights have not been on. They are working, but so that they don’t just keep working when no one is using the field at night, so they are switched off. Although if we want to train at night, they might switch them on’.
Also speaking with Abiola Toyin, an education and English student, he recounts how beautiful the sports centre was when the lights were on during the WAUG games, in contrast to the daily darkness that now plagues the sport every night. According to her, ‘The environment when WAUG game was on was very beautiful, thrilling. It is something you will love to stay there, even in the night, because the whole place is lit up, and it is bright. It is essentially bright and good, and of course, when you have this kind of thing, some decency, just like what light does, it exposes, so you can’t do anything. But right now, the place is dark, dark as it has been before the WAUG games. So everything now is dark and bleak, and no beauty anymore, he said.
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Ruth shared her experience while passing through the sports centre in the evening. She said, ‘As I was coming this evening, I did not see any light. Everything is just black; there is no light. I don’t know, maybe because it is not fully dark yet, because that time was around seven’. Speaking further on the situation, she stressed that “it is not okay’.
Speaking with ACJ OAU Correspondent, Sumbade Jnr, The Director of Sports of Great Ife Students’ Union, he explained that the stadium lights were switched off because there was no need to use them at the moment. ‘The reason why you have not been seeing it is just that there is no usefulness for it at this point. The reason why it was done then was because WAUG was happening and athletes from other schools were training in the night. So, if the situation warrants it, if there is a match that will be happening at night, probably when the inter-faculty starts and you will have a match till night, it will be on. Of course, it is still working, there is no problem whatsoever with it to the best of my knowledge. He said.
Speaking further on other sports that also train at the sports centre, Sumbade notes that ‘for the case of people that train at night, had it been they are using track or the pitch, the light will be on for them. And you see, those taekwondo and all other sports that train in the night, they use their gym. They have one in my department, which is PHE, and we also have one in that swimming pool side. It is still working. Nothing has affected it. Although there was light at the lawn tennis court and other buildings near the sports centre in the evening,