OAU students protest against new transport policy

By Osordi Ayomide

Tensions reached a boiling point at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, on Tuesday, as thousands of students staged a mass protest to reject the institution’s new transportation policy and demand urgent solutions to deteriorating welfare conditions.

The demonstration, which saw students marching toward the university’s main gate, follows a Students’ Union congress held on Monday.

The congress resolved to escalate grievances that have plagued the campus since the introduction of a centralized transport system.

Beyond the mobility crisis, the students are also protesting a controversial plan to evacuate residents of the Obafemi Awolowo Hall and ongoing technical failures with the university’s electronic portal, which have stalled course registrations mid-semester.

The “Campus Unrest” is a mechanical failure in the implementation of the university’s Transport Modernization Policy.

While the donation of 80 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses and tricycles by Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, was intended to modernize campus mobility, the university’s decision to ban all previous commercial operators has created a “Service Vacuum.”

With over 35,000 students and staff now forced to rely on a limited fleet, the result is a logistical bottleneck marked by queues stretching to the Mayfair axis and significant disruptions to academic schedules.

The Students’ Union, led by President Adelani David, has explicitly demanded a “Hybrid Model,” temporarily reintroducing commercial operators until the new fleet reaches a viable scale.

Furthermore, the simultaneous “Housing and Digital Crises” have compounded student frustration.

The planned renovation of OAU Hall without a verified Relocation Strategy threatens to leave hundreds of students displaced in a high-inflation economy where off-campus rent is skyrocketing.

Coupled with an e-portal upgrade that has remained dysfunctional for weeks, the administration is facing a “Triple-Threat” to campus stability.

While the university management has convened an Emergency Senate Meeting, the mechanical challenge lies in whether they can move beyond the “teething phase” rhetoric and provide immediate relief, such as increasing the vehicle fleet or restoring previous transport routes, to prevent a total shutdown of academic activities.