How Accommodation Challenges Continue to Affect OAU Students
Benjamin Oluwakasayo Emmanuel The issue of accommodation has long been a pressing problem for students at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU). Every academic session, many students, both freshers and senior students face difficulties securing on-campus housing. Some are forced to sleep in lecture theatres, while others rely on friends’ hostels, buy expensive bedspaces, or pay exorbitant fees for on/off-campus private hostels. There are only around 7,200 bedspaces currently available on campus to cater for a large student population, leading to overcrowding. Many students living in private hostels express concerns over security and high rent. A first-year student from the Department of Information Science narrated the ordeal of his early days on campus. “I had to be sleeping around on campus when I first resumed because I was unable to secure accommodation due to late admission which prevented me from balloting for bedspace. When I resumed, I first slept in the SUB TV room before I we...