I also went to this University and i am glad this was written. I always said i will write about my experience but never did, now we know why private universities are regarded as GLORIFIED SECONDARY SCHOOLS. Definitely all schools have issues but it is good to discuss them. Only hypocrites are against this article, i stand by the truth and i confirmed the authenticity of this story before publishing. Please leave a comment. Thank you.
I don’t know how to give this a more befitting title. There are absolutely no words to describe the feeling of utter regret, contempt, repulsion and anger I feel towards Redeemers University – where sadly I find myself pursuing a B.Sc. Regret that I came to the school, repulsion at how it is being run by people who are supposed to be men of God first and foremost, contempt because I feel the school is a worthless piece of human waste and anger because the powers that be, are not interested in moving the school forward and making things better for not just the students but the staff in general. Instead they are interested in mundane things such as: banning all phones, especially BlackBerries and camera phones in general; the facial hair on young men – whether cleanly cut or rough – being completely shaven; attendance for church services that are so drab and boring the devils minions would forget their task of causing chaos and confusion and fall asleep instead; and also bullying students which is the favorite past time of the Student Affairs Officer, the Assistant Chaplain & the Chief Security Officer.
This list is endless. But the ultimate mission of the Chaplaincy of Redeemers University, is to make life unbearable and a living hell for students in general. I say the Chaplaincy because obviously they have taken full control of the school ever since the departure of the first Vice Chancellor, Professor Tomori, who kept a firm barrier between school work and church activities. Since his departure at the end of the 2010/2011 session, the university has undergone a series of changes, that are more or less useless in my opinion.
For example, the introduction of a christian course that was made compulsory for all departments including the management & natural science departments. You might ask what is wrong with that. My reply is why introduce such a course, when students have loads of assignments to submit nearly every other day or have their books to study all through the night? This course called ‘Study to show (STS)’ is aimed at drawing students closer to God according to the Chaplaincy. In the eyes of the students, it is another way of punishing us, for what crime, we are yet to find out. Assignments include submitting summaries of at least 10-20 chapters of the bible before the next class or summaries of whole books sometimes. Tell me how do you expect your ward who was sent to school, (to get a degree mind you, not in Theology) to pay full attention to his/her school work when he/she has the last STS assignment lurking at the back of his/her mind?
Did I mention the new Vice Chancellor is a complete clown and or buffoon? His command of the English language alone is appalling to say the least. If he wasn’t from the Yoruba tribe, you would think he was related to Dame Patience Jonathan. His activities include rolling on the floor in church, composing new hymns every Sunday and any other irrelevant thing you can imagine possible (including giving a lecture on etiquette and in his words to ladies, “Do not apply makeup, it ruins your face. It is not godly. It attracts the devil”. He said this on May 9. Okay, maybe he didn’t use those exact words, but he did say it was wrong for women or girls to use makeup. How backward is this guy, I hear you ask. Anyway, that is the least of problems with the school – which is trying ever so hard to imitate Covenant University and if possible surpass the glorified secondary school as it is usually called. That power to control young people from diverse homes and backgrounds, some oozing wealth, others reeking of abject poverty.
I hear you ask, how someone reeking of abject poverty is able to afford the school fees which presently is in the bracket of N400,000 to N650,000 – as from next session the least anyone will pay is going to be between N650,000 and N850,000? Honestly I have no idea. But what shocks me is that this so called university (RUN) calls on students to donate to the school fees of the less fortunate students who can’t afford the high fees of a school their parents probably donated their last twenty naira to, in hopes that they would be blessed in return. I scoff at that thought. Blessed indeed. Life isn’t fair. Do I need to mention that if The Redeemed Church requests fifty naira from their zillions of branches around Lagos or the west alone that they would generate millions of naira to not just pay these kids school fees but to give them cash to help with their needs at home?
Let’s move. Now, one would think that this university with all their ‘gra gra’ would have facilities in abundance. I laugh. Ask the computer science students how many programs they know how to use, from Pascal, C to C++, you name it. Better yet set a test for them. I guarantee you no one will type a code bereft of errors. Infact, ask them how many practicals they’ve had on each of the programs they’ve treated from 100 level to 400 level or find out how many of the computer systems in the software lab are actually working.
Sigh.
The physics lab? Let’s not go there. The laboratories in many secondary schools boast of more facilities. I hear they have good facilities in their chemistry lab because of the presence of a certain Dr.Emerole, who is head of the department. Did I hear you ask “And they pay such a high amount as school fees?!” The absolute shocker is that most of the courses in this school are not accredited by the NUC.
As a matter of fact, in the mathematics department between March and April, special meetings were held by the Head of the Department with the Vice Chancellors knowledge. It was in anticipation of the visit from NUC officials to the school and he specifically encouraged and asked the students to LIE on behalf of the university on matters involving how their classes are being held, if they were having their practicals and so on if any NUC official accosted them and interrogated them. He is probably between 55 & 65years old.
Have I mentioned that during Prof.Tomori’s tenure, the General Overseer’s wife would occasionally submit some names of jambites who were special and must be granted admission after the entrance exams? According to the students that swear they were told this in confidence by the man himself, he tore up such lists and as a result the students were punished by the missions who live in the camp by cutting off their light and water supply. RUN has no wireless internet, despite the millions of naira that’s been pumped into securing one for the university. The story is that three vendors or companies were told to present their budgets and test their facilities in the school. Of the three only one was effective around the school up to the hostel area, but it wasn’t chosen. The one that was chosen had a link with the former registrar who was disgraced out of office before the start of the present 2011-2012 session for stealing school funds running into more than N12millionin conjunction with the Chief Security Officer who still has his job.
Who knows why he still has his job? Maybe he knows the secrets of some people up there. Also the state of some of the rooms in the hostels, are beyond deplorable; with water leaking from the ceilings of rooms on the ground floor to, water seeping from the ground and flooding the rooms, to ceilings that are falling apart of their own free will. A friend there once said every morning he wakes up, he thanks God his ceiling hasn’t crushed him to death.
On the night of Tuesday May 8, between the hours of 11:45pm - 1am, there was a fire outbreak in Block 16 rooms 1 & 2 that consumed both rooms completely of all their possession. Thankfully to God, no life was lost, neither were any casualties recorded. But the alarming thing is that help did not come for nearly 20minutes! During which the students themselves tried putting off the fire but couldn’t achieve that because water wasn’t running in the hostels and the only fire extinguisher available extinguished under 10 seconds. Mind you, this fire occurred close to the transformer and the surrounding rooms. The fire was so intense, the smoke rose far above the buildings and got all the way to the front gate of the Prophet Moses Hall hostel from the back of the hostel where the fire originally started.
Only God knows where the two security men placed in charge of the hostel were at this time and also the porters who were suddenly AWOL. The hall warden was spotted running out of the hostel and watching the fire outside at a somewhat safe distance with the female hall warden. When the fire truck came, there was no sense of urgency. The students lamented the laughter on the faces of the driver of the fire truck and another fireman; also they were angered by how leisurely they went about their job of putting out the fire which was already dying out by the time the firemen arrived.
That isn’t what led me to writing this letter or report as it now seems. This is being inspired by the pain I felt when I heard of the trivial way in which lives are regarded in that space in the Redeemed Camp, now being referred to as a university. Two weeks back, on the April 26, a life was nearly lost. A 100 level student nearly lost his life due to the inadequacy of the nurses at the RUN clinic. The absence of the doctors for at least 55 minutes and the lackadaisical treatment meted out by these group of individuals who are supposed to save lives whenever and wherever the need be. The young man received a knee to the back of his head unintentionally when he courageously dived out to catch a loose ball and he passed out on the field for a few seconds. Granted the students didn’t seek medical attention for their friend immediately, because he got up and came back in to continue the match later on. He complained of a headache and blurry vision and when it was time to alight from the school bus when it got to the hostel, the students found out he had gone unconscious again.
The driver of the bus wasted five minutes before he sped to the clinic and a student was sent to call the orderlies to bring a stretcher to carry the young boy of 16 years. Of course they didn’t get any stretcher because they were not concerned and the students carried their comrade in themselves with their hands. The nurse that was first on the scene, after she was briefed on what had transpired, instructed one of the students to go and buy a bottle of lucozade boost for the young lad. Someone is that close to death and the solution is lucozade boost?!
The students asked for the doctor and were told he was away without leave. After the nurse continuously tapped the boy and called his name for at least twenty minutes (all the while the boy was shaking & tossing vigorously from his head to his hands and feet whilst breathing very hard but was still unconscious), she realised that he might be in need of some medication and proceeded to set up a drip with the help of another nurse and some yellow-ish substance was injected into it. The doctor finally strolled in at about 7:55pm and wasn’t even headed to the ward. He was instead concerned with hailing all the agbalagbas in the waiting room as is customary of Yoruba people. It wasn’t until he saw the panicked look on the face of one of the nurses that he proceeded to the ward. It took him about five minutes before he realised there was a huge problem. A second man arrived at around 8:02pm. No one knows if he is a doctor or not, but he acted like one. By this time the young boy was at the middle of his second drip (which a pint of water, sugar & salt with the yellowish drug injected into it, making it a total of 100ml. For that situation, a drip isn’t supposed to be administered as there is already a swelling in the head, where water would have accumulated).
Instead he should have been given another drip called a Metholene or something like that. Its job is to dry out the water that has accumulated in the head. Therefore we have a charge of wrong administration of medication) if there’s anything like that in a court case) and there was a visible reduction in the frequency of his convulsion and the grunting sounds he had been making earlier. When a student present observed this and commented, the two doctors laughed it off and attributed that to the effect of the drip he was being given. Well not long after that, about 5-10minutes to be precise, the young lad stopped breathing.
See panic!
The first doctor started rubbing his fist vigorously in the center of the boy’s chest. I’m not a doctor, but from the movies and documentaries I’ve watched, I would have expected that sort of pressure to be applied on his left chest where his heart is located. Perhaps the doctor at redeemers’ university clinic was taught in school that the heart is in the middle of the chest. Perhaps. Well the foolish staff of that clinic commenced a helter-skelter search for their stretcher and proceeded to put the boy in the ambulance, with the intention of rushing him to the Ogun State University Teaching Hospital. They nearly didn’t achieve this as they nearly dropped the boy two times before they reached the exit. All four of them carrying the stretcher. One of the elderly nurses was in tears around this period.
And when they finally succeeded in getting him into the ambulance, he nearly rolled over yet again. When one of the students asked where the belt used in securing patients was, lo and behold he found out the belts had been replaced with worn out ropes. When he was secured firmly, they tried giving him oxygen. The first cylinder didn’t work, but on the second try with the second cylinder, they were able to revive him and his chest started moving again. He was subsequently rushed to the hospital. The Chief Security Officer, who is particularly fond of bullying and harassing students arrived on the scene and warned a friend of the boy not to call the boys’ parents. Unfortunately for him, the nurses had already gotten hold of the father who rushed to his son’s side that night from Ikotun, if my memory serves me right. We thank God in heaven this young man didn’t die. He woke up the next morning.
What’s the point of this write-up? The world deserves to know what goes on in these so called private universities. Covenant University is another university with loads of secrets. Do not be deceived. If proper investigations are carried out, who knows what can be achieved? We young people are made to endure a lot and when we complain to our parents, most of them ignore our tales in the belief that they are nothing but tales. I guess it is until something happens to the child of someone prominent in the society or military that these vices will be tackled.
God help us all.
From a concerned student of Redeemers University
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