Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The dawn of Saturday, March 9, 2019 touched the campus of University of Ibadan (UI) with a great ecstasy. It was the day governorship election took place in 29 states of the Federation and the House of Assembly poll held across the 36 states of the country.
Many academic staff of the nation’s permier university were recruited as ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and they carried out the national assignment in the 33 Local Government Areas of Oyo State and even in other states.
Majority of lecturers that did not participate as INEC ad-hoc staff stayed in door with their family. Also, majority of students living on campus stayed in the hostels till evening.
But around 5pm, a cloudy sky appeared and within a few minutes, the heaven opened their windows and sent rain down to the earth in large volume. Within some minutes after the downpour began, a storm struck and wreaked monumental havoc on some buildings in the university.
At the time the rain started falling, accreditation and voting exercise had been concluded and collation of results was on going. This probably made many residents of the university to stay at home, otherwise some casualty would have been recorded. The restriction of movement from 6am to 6pm on the day also helped to prevent loss of life.
A tour of the campus after the incident revealed that the rainstorm affected many places, including one of the female hostels, Queen Elizabeth Hall; the popular Trenchard Hall; two male halls of residence, Mellamby and Kuti Halls; Zoological Garden; the building housing the university radio, Diamond FM; health centre; sports complex; and Wole Soyinka Theatre Arts Auditorium at the Faculty of Arts.
At the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the strong wind blew off the roofs of the reading room in the hall, as well as that of E block, C block, A block, three rooms in H block, toilet and bathroom in the same block, Princess (Dr.) Aderonke Oladeinde Memorial ICT Centre in the hall, and two rooms in G block. The dish in the ICT Centre was also was blown off by the strong wind.
The rainstorm also blew off seven water reservoirs in the female hostel from their stands on top of different blocks in the hostel with water and they fell in front, middle and sides of the hostels. Some of the reservoirs were damaged. It was further gathered that some cables were also pulled off by the storm.
Equally, the rainstorm damaged a roof in Physics Department, and also the water tanks in the department. The roof of the maternity centre was also partially blown off, and it fell trees on two cars parked outside the health centre. Roofs of two blocks were also removed in Kuti Hall.
At the zoological gardens, a big tree fell off on Jackal cages. Another tree also fell on the gardens’ fence along Tech Road, and affected overhead cables, though it was not carrying current while in the same vein, the Squash Court’s roof was completely removed.
The rainstorm also affected No 1 Dan Fodio, Osofisan’s residence, the tree fell on overhead electrical cables, and electricity supply to the house was cut off as at the time of filing this report. Roof to the house of Prof Ekanola was partly removed, including the boys quarters.
Also blown off were roofs of 11 houses in Abadina quarters as their roofs were removed to varying extents. Some parts of the perimeter fence of Queens Hall collapsed; nine rooms were affected in Mellamby Hall
The roof of LNG complex also caved in and the Inverters fell. Some security facilities were damaged at the security office. Windscreen of a car was damaged. Roofs were removed by the rainstorm at the Faculty of Education. Meanwhile, some trees which fell on major roads had been cleared.
Yinka Afolayan, a 100-level Law student, who stays in Mellamby Hall, had the roof of his room removed by the rainstorm. He recounted that the damage to the roof of his room, “was as a result of rainstorm that occurred on Saturday. It was in the evening and it was very brief. The rain was falling and there was this sudden wind that blew off the roofs of some buildings and damaged a lot of things. It also fell some trees in the university.
“I was in the room when it occurred. I was playing Scrabble in the other room. I noticed that rain was falling normally. Suddenly, the rain became violent and strong wind started blowing. We suddenly saw that the roof of Trenchard Hall was blown off. The roof of some rooms in Mellamby Hall was also blown off. The case of this hall is even better because there are some halls that were worse hit by this rainstorm. For example, Kuti Hall, the roof of a whole block on the top floor was blown off.
“The roof went off but the ceiling was still there. We did not know that the roof of our room had been blown off, until later when we discovered that it looked like the ceiling was soaked and swelling. We noticed that it was like water was inside. The rain had stopped before the ceiling caved in. The water made the ceiling soft and it collapsed. But the water did not destroy anything. At least eight rooms were affected in this hall.
Another 100-level student of medicine who resides in Mellamby Hall, Adewumi Adeyemo, also shared his experience of the incident, stating: “When the storm was blowing, nothing happened to this room and nothing happened the moment the rain stopped. It was later in the night, around 12midnight that the first ceiling caved in and one hour later, the second ceiling collapsed. It might be that the storm had blown off the roof and we did not know until the ceiling caved in. I felt bad about the incident, but nobody was injured.”
Also, Michael Aderibigbe, a 200-level student of Industrial and Production Engineering, who resides in Tedder Hall, said: “The rain started around 5pm. It was very heavy. And within five minutes, there was heavy wind and it caused many damage in the university.
“In Tedder Hall, where I stay, it affected 14 rooms on the topmost floor. My room was affected. But it was not that much. Also, none of my property was affected. The management should repair the roof on time.
“The incident did not hamper my preparation for examinations. I told you that my room was not the one that was affected and we accommodated our colleagues, whose rooms were badly affected. But I don’t really stay in the room because I use the reading room often for my study.”
A 200-level student of Industrail Chemistry, Samuel Akinola, who stays in Kuti Hall, also shared his experience: “I stay at the ground floor. So, my room was not affected. But rooms of some of my friends were affected. Some of them said their beds and boxes were soaked. They said foodstuff and some other materials were also soaked.”
But it was not the first time rainstorm would wreak havoc in UI. It happened on Friday, April 6, 2018 when rainstorm destroyed at least seven buildings in the institution, including the Students’ Union Building (SUB), two halls of residence, and Chemistry laboratory of the International School.
In the 2018 rainstorm, the havoc was wreaked on Friday night during a heavy downpour in many parts of Ibadan, forcing many residents of the city to trek long distance as a result of traffic grid lock on the road which lasted for many hours.
Several structures affected in the nation’s premier university in the 2018 rainstorm were badly damaged and mant trees fell across the roads in the campus.
The buildings affected then include Tedder Hall, Bello Hall and some departments in the Faculty of Agriculture. An electric transformer at the SUB was also damaged.
Reacting to the incident, the Director of Public Communications of UI, Mr. Tunji Oladejo, said that no life was lost, adding that the institution had started fixing the blown off roofs and cleared the trees that fell on the roads.
He, however, appealed to the Federal Government to assist the university to fix the property that was destroyed by the rainstorm. Oladejo also stated that all the property that was destroyed by the rainstorm of April 2018 had been repaired.
He put the monetary cost at millions of Naira, adding that there were pockets of rainstorm that wreaked havoc in UI, apart from the last two disasters. He explained that UI occupies a very large expanse of land and little or nothing could be done to prevent natural disaster of such nature.