i got this letter from daily post and i decided to put it up here because this is a story that needs to be told. i ve my own reservations about some of the things mentioned above but all in all there's always a true story in every rumor.
"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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