By Adedayo Ademuwagun

 

It is now less than 24 hours to the gubernatorial election in Osun, and the Osun State University main campus in Osogbo is empty. The students have fled.

This state university was founded seven years ago. However, it has since seen little infrastructural development.

The dusty, bumpy road to the campus looks like it leads to a remote village — and this is the only road to the campus from anywhere.

The campus itself looks like a few roads and buildings inside a very large forest. Our journalist says he could count the number of completed buildings on the premises. The bus park, for example, is a mere patch of land cleared from the bush, and is not more than a few hundred metres in perimeter. The campus is largely bush.

Our journalist meets with two student leaders to find out what they think about the campus infrastructure.

One of them says, “Are you kidding? You can see for yourself that this place is devoid of any remarkable infrastructure, and the government has not shown any interest in developing it in the nearly four years they have been in power.

“Look at this road to the campus for instance. We wrote to the local government chairman about a year and half ago, appealing to him for the local government to fix this road. He said it would cost N200 million and that this was an impossible project for him because his local government doesn’t even get as much money from the state government. He advised us to approach the state government.”

“After that, we wrote to everyone in the state government — the governor, the deputy governor, the speaker. But no one of them responded, up till now.”

“I think the governor has decided to just leave this school undeveloped because it is not originally his project. He didn’t start the university. It was Oyinlola, his predecessor who started the university.

“Go and have a look at the primary and secondary schools he has built in Osogbo. He has done a beautiful job. He just doesn’t want to develop this university so the predecessor won’t take the credit. That’s how our politicians think in this country. It is not just in Osun.

“Look at the medical school over there (he points to a desolate area). The place was abandoned after the NUC ruled that the school lacked the facilities to run a medical school.”

To extenuate the present level of development of the campus, one student at the science faculty says that the university is still new.

She says, “Remember that the university is just seven years old. Infrastructural development will not happen so quickly. It will take some time.”

Another student explains that the university is based on a multi-campus model, and so this might be a snag.

“We have six campuses, and this just happens to be the main campus. The government cannot concentrate development on this campus alone.”

But another student at the faculty says, “It is the main campus. Even if there are ten other campuses, the main campus should be far better developed than this.”

“Apart from reducing tuition when he began his tenure, Aregbesola has done practically nothing for this university.”