The Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, OAU, Prof. Eyitayo Ogunbodede, Tuesday, spoke extensively on issues bedevilling the institution and the progess made so far.
The professor of dentistry spoke on Television Continental, TVC fireworks which was closely monitored by Vreporters. The VC dwelled much on the accommodation issues being faced by students of the institution.
Asked, if truly some Halls are not occupied to their full capacity in a bid to favour some members of Academic community in the institution who own some properties in town.
‘I don’t know of anybody who is involved in allocating hostels connected to staff in town, let me tell you something, one day I was taken aback, when somebody said, yes, we were told that, you have one hostel in town, I said, me? I said, I am not a business man, I am an academic, so have never. People say a lot of things, what is happening is that the students are not happy that they have to stay in town, but the people in town are very happy that students are staying among them, that was impossible during the Ife-Modakeke crisis. But now, Ife town is like any other town, it’s no longer like that. In OAU it’s impossible for a hall not to be occupied to its full capacity, I can tell you that, we have fewer bed spaces than the number of students we have, why must we keep spaces without accommodating students? So, what is possible, I don’t know why they (students) are coming out with this, we may allocate to final year students and first year students, sometimes we may allocate to students who would not use that, but before, the students used to sell it, you get accommodation for N90 and sell it for N150,000 sometimes N200,000, now we have discouraged that, once a student is caught in the act, we take it away from you and allocate it to another person, so they will rather keep it for exam period because they will have to read.
Ogunbodede later admitted that, some members of the University community have hostels in town and he said, that is legitimate.
Asked about the school hostel in Parakin, one of the immediate vicinities of the institution, if it’s been allocated.
‘We are tied to allocate that, but the reason we have not allowed our students to occupy that, there is a crisis between the campus and the Ife community in terms of that location and I don’t want to loose any student.’
When asked why was the structure erected at Parakin in the first place. he said, ‘The land belongs to the campus, there is no controversy as to who owns that land.’
Asked about the amount collected for the accommodation at Parakin, the VC said,’ The Accommodation at Parakin can’t be a N 90 accommodation. For the Parakin’s scheme , I think it’s N 35,000 not N150,000. When we realised that COVID-19 didn’t allow them to go to that place, we asked all of them to get their refund and some of them opted to come to Campus, those who were not ready to come to campus actually got their refunds, but many of them said no because they want to keep that, because they are still on campus and they are saying no . Nobody will hold on to your money. One of the things I said when I assumed office as Vice Chancellor is that all students will be kept save.”
Asked about the new academic programs the school is bringing on board. He mentioned aeronautical and aerospace engineering among others .
“We are the first federal university to start aeronautics and aerospace engineering programs, but it’s not normal run of the new program that we are introducing in OAU, we also have the airstrip which will come with it, so it is a complete package, and the building for that is under construction. We are also introducing the mass communications, you know it’s been unbundled, we will be having five of its components. We have also registered some programs in software engineering, like cyber security and we have been going to almost the West African countries and bring them to OAU.’
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