The 2022/2023 academic session witnessed an outrageous hike in sundry fees for all students alongside accommodation levy for students staying on campus. The accommodation fee was increased from #3,090 to #30,000 and #2,590 to #25,000 for fresh students and returning students respectively.
READ ASLO: Inside OAU: Tales and Struggles of Road 7 Commuters
Despite the increase in the accommodation levy across all halls of residence in Obafemi Awolowo University, residents of the halls feel the reasons for the increment are yet to be justified as a lot of challenges are currently being faced across all campus halls of residence as most students resulted in fixing some things in their rooms to make the room comfortable and liveable a bit.
Window nets, lamp holders and sockets amongst other things that make a room conducive for the occupants were mostly fixed by the occupants themselves after paying the accommodation levy.
Male Intrusion In Female Hostels At Night
A series of reports have emanated from female halls of residence about the invasion of strange men in their hostels at odd hours. ACJOAU, on Sunday 3rd of December, reported the intrusion of Moremi Hall by an opposite gender during odd hours, who dressed and disguised as a woman and attempted to rape an occupant of the hall.
Also, Mozambique Hall experienced an intrusion by an unknown man around 01:00 am on Friday, 15th of December, 2023. According to a statement released by the executives of the hall, they expressed their deep concern and anger regarding the alarming security lapse that occurred within the hall premises.
READ ALSO: OAU Student Emerges As NAOSS National President
‘We vehemently charge both the School Management and Hall Management to be more than mere spectators in this matter. We demand immediate, decisive action to rectify the security deficiencies that persist within our residence’.
‘This incident serves as an undeniable call for a proactive and comprehensive approach to security. We refuse to tolerate any compromise on our safety and well-being. Our increased Hostel demands a corresponding increase in the security measures provided’.
‘Mozambique Hall urges the School Management and Hall Management to prioritise our security without delay. We demand swift and effective measures to ensure that such incidents are prevented in the future’.
Increase in Occupants Per Room In Awo Hall
ACJOAU can confirm the allocation of bed 5 and bed 6 in some rooms at the Obafemi Awolowo Hall. Recall that the Ogunbodede-led administration in the 2017/2018 academic session reduced the number of occupants in various halls of residence. However, recent observations have shown that bed 5 and bed 6, which is an indication of more than four occupants in a room, are being allocated to some students’ hostels.
In an exclusive conversation with an occupant in Block 2 at Awolowo Hall, he confirmed that some rooms now have five occupants while some have six in the yellow blocks (Blocks 1-6, and five in the white blocks (Blocks 7 and 8) which was a maximum of four occupants as at last session. According to him, ‘When I was filling the registration book during my hostel clearance, only four spaces were allocated per room in the book; however, I was surprised when someone came in with a space clearance claiming bed 5’.
As at the time of filing this report, efforts to reach the Awo Hall Chairman, Omisakin Seye, proved abortive.
ICYMI: Students’ Union Takes Steps Against Late Evening Classes, Meets Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Poor State Of Hostel Facilities; Toilet, Soakaways And Water Supply
In Fajuyi Hall, the students are being faced with a lot of problems such as lack of sufficient toilets in some of the annex blocks, and issues with electricity in some rooms of the main blocks in the Hall as there is either no connection to electricity at all or an issue of damaged sockets, bulbs and fans.
Meanwhile, the hall executives in a bid to adhere to the advice given to them by the occupants of the hall, decided to set up the security and welfare committees to see to the security, social interaction and generally rendering welfare services of the occupants. However, this move encountered a setback as only a few occupants picked up the form to be members of the committees
Also, there has been a complaint about the lack of sporting and social facilities and activities in the hall despite having union officers holding the portfolios of both the director of sports and the director of socials respectively.
Furthermore, the call for the town hall meeting regarded as ‘Congress’ by the occupants of the hall has fallen on the deaf ears of the executives as none has been summoned as of the time of filing this report.
A resident of Angola hall who claimed anonymity for security reasons said ‘The major problem we have is that there is no water, water is a solid issue, sometimes we will have to queue for at least an hour before we can fetch water’. He further stated that ‘Leaders lead by example but for the case of the Hall Chairman, Akilapa Azeez Babatunde, it is a different scenario, there have been countless times when he will jump the queue to fetch water. This is not the case of dragging the hall chairman, but an appeal to the school management to upgrade the level of welfare of the hall’.
He highlighted that Block C and D have four storex taps each but none of them are working. He also highlighted the fact that when they resumed, there were no bulbs in their rooms and they had to fix it themselves which also cut across a few other rooms in the hostel and that the fans in the rooms are not working at all.
READ ALSO: FYB Week – A Reminder of the Finite Nature of Our Time on the OAU Campus
He further stated the fact that there are some blocks with faulty ceilings in the hall which is very dangerous to the students. He also shared his experience of how he almost fell into one of the exposed soakaways, ‘how my glorious destiny was almost cut away’. He described the state of the soakaway as one which is dangerous to human health and the environment and also for an ideal hostel environment.
Recall the incident which occurred a few years ago that claimed the life of Heritage Ajibola, a part 2 student of the Department of Linguistics and African Languages due to the poor state of the toilet facility (soakaway) at Maintenance Student Village. A similar scenario of the poor state of soakaways is currently being experienced in some halls of residences and no decision has been taken so far as regards the state of the hostel facilities from the concerned authorities.
The situation is almost the same in the ETF hall of residence as they are faced with the same problems in resemblance to the cases mentioned above. David, a resident of the hall said, ‘Over fifty ceiling fans are not working for crying out loud! There is poor ventilation and we are getting to the hot season soon when we will need enough ventilation in the room of eight’.
READ ALSO: ESAN Holds Inter-Departmental Debate For Fresh Students
He also cited situations where they had to buy a bulb, fix the sockets and fix the door themselves in the room since resumption. ‘The Hall Executives have been in our rooms countless times to check for malfunctioning equipment and what we need all to no avail’ he said. He furthermore expressed gratitude to a report by the Observer’s Mag about water scarcity in the hostel which in his thoughts has helped and reduced the bad situation.
‘Another issue we are faced with is an open soakaway which has posed threats to our lives and nothing has been done about it. It is detrimental to our health and anyone can fall into it if not careful’ he said.
Iris, a Mozambique queen shared her experience while speaking to an ACJOAU correspondent, She said ‘Moz has its ups and downs, and one of the downs is the water issue, more often than not, there is always a scarcity of clean usable water and whenever there is water, its either custard colour or chocolate brown and the queue to fetch the water is always long and unending’.
She highlighted that many times, she has to wake up as early as 02:00 am in search of water. ‘The struggle is just unbearable’, she said. While highlighting other issues faced at the hall, she said ‘How can eight people sleep comfortably in a room with no proper ventilation’. Furthermore, she stated that after paying the hall due, the hall executives requested another additional payment for the freshers’ package which was not available for everyone.
ICYMI: After ACJ’s Report, OAU Commences Fixing Of Campus Streetlights
Speaking with ACJOAU correspondent, a resident of Fajuyi hall who also claimed anonymity for security reasons expressed his displeasure as to the state of the hall, he said ‘That toilet issue is the worst! How can one floor manage one toilet? Like I wonder and we paid 25k not counting the hostel maintenance charges! What are the hall Executives and the welfare of the Students’ Union doing in this case? They enjoy the executive suite full of AC and good hostel facilities off Campus!”
He furthermore highlighted a situation where one of his friends was sick due to the issue of the toilet. He stressed the fact that when they resumed, they paid dues to the Financial Secretary of the hall and up till now, he has not been able to receive his receipt. ‘The Financial Secretary has also failed to give us our receipt for payment of Hostel dues please What is going on’?
READ ALSO: Poplat Fire: Students’ Union Demands Compensation For Affected Students
In an interview session with Olaore David, the Chairman of Fajuyi Hall, he said,’ All correspondence should be directed to the student affairs, we are trying all our best as hall executives to make sure the state of the toilet gets to normalcy’.
We have all receipts at hand ready for distribution to occupants but due to 3-4 personal reasons, it has not been distributed yet. Note that my financial secretary is the best financial secretary so far Fajuyi has got in recent times’. He further stated that the issues on toilets and general electricity fracture in the hall should be directed to the management.
AROUND CAMPUS: Students Lament Lack of Functional Street Lights On Campus
‘We have some acting committees in the hall and occupants are still picking up their forms so no issues on that and about the sporting facilities. We have been managing and maintaining what we have at hand but we are calling on sponsors for better sporting facilities in the hall sooner than later’. He said while speaking on issues of committees and sporting facilities.
Recall that in an interview session with the one-day president of the Students’ Union Yusuf Michael, he highlighted that he would have a tour of all the halls of residence which he did to look into the issues affecting the students but up till date, there has not been any update as regards to that and none from the office of the Welfare Officer of the Students’ Union.
Be Part Of The Revitalization, It Is Very Commendable – Dean, DSA
Speaking with ACJOAU correspondent in a cross-section interview, the Dean, Division of Student Affairs, Prof. John Odedire, commended the efforts of the students in making their hostel a better place for them to live, he commended them for a few renovations done and he said, ‘Be part of the revitalization, it is very commendable’.
Responding to the issues faced by the occupants of halls of residence, he said ‘They are very good issues, we appreciate that we have challenges and two factors are largely responsible, number one: when you look at where we are coming from, the kind of payment we have been making, we will all agree that we have not been realistic with it but all because the successive administration/ management have been careful not to create a wrong impression for you that possibly we are shaky in our responsibilities but the reality is that it led to a long time disrepair process’. He said that the major factor is the long years of neglect and inability to do proper fixing and renovation of facilities because of scarcity of funds.
‘The second was the long compulsory vacation period we had due to the ASUU strike which lasted 8 months. The implication is that the time that should have been used to complete a cycle, we had it elongated for almost a whole year. Those two factors contributed to most of the dilapidation we noticed in the halls of residence that were long years of neglect,’ he said.
According to him, to address that is what gave birth to the new charges, ‘We are not there yet’ but in the new arrangement, part of it is that a certain amount, though it may look small, out of the money paid for accommodation will be used to service the halls of residence in terms of maintenance and repairs. ‘Considering where we are coming from and where we are aspiring to be, it contains a gradual process’, he stated.
Furthermore, he said that because of this new introduction, a new arrangement has been dragging due to the batch B admission process. ‘The new structure is built on the cost of each student before any tangible expenditure will be made on each hall, we have to wait till the hall is fully subscribed before we can take decisions otherwise, we would not be able to raise a commiserate amount of money that will make us do anything tangible in the hall’, he said. He added that things will be done as the need arises and all work must be target-based.
‘The issue on the ETF, we already have them and we look at what can be done immediately with the available funds. It is just a matter of time. In a matter of one or two months, we will start and you will now have a drastic transformation in all the halls of residence’. he said.
The Dean added that the university does not want students to go around with the impression that upon all the payments, they are still the ones making the fixing of all the issues. The whole essence of the payment is for the university to maintain the facilities, but before maintenance, repairs will come first.
‘The broken taps, the collapsed septate, we will now have opportunities to attend to them and that applies to all the halls of residence’, Speaking further, he said that as regards the subscription into the halls, it will be fixed. As regards the Awo hall, with the new renovation, the design is now made to accommodate six, ‘that is the dream, that is where we are going’. ‘This year, the target of the Vice Chancellor is to transform the whole Awolowo Hall and then move to a place like Fajuyi Hall, we want to be sure that we are cleared in a hall before moving to the others’. He said.