Adejesu & Puffer

The students of University of Benin have expressed extreme worry over the cases of thefts in the school hostels. As at 5am on Friday, 18th February, 2022, some student nurses of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital raised an alarm that they had been robbed while they were asleep in their room. The incident reportedly took place under the noses of security officers and hostel porters. ACJ-UNIBEN visited the scene of the incident and interviewed one of the occupants of the hostel.

Good afternoon. What is your name please?

Toyosi: I am Omoniyi Toyosi from UBTH.

I guess you stay in Nursing Hostel.

Toyosi: Yes.

We heard an incident happened where some persons broke in and took some of your stuffs. Can you tell us your ordeal on this?

Toyosi: Yes. Okay around 2:47am this morning, we noticed that the door was opened and we thought its one of our roommate that was going out to ease herself. Then we noticed that we didn’t see our phones, purses and bags. We started shouting. We didn’t see the person’s face but we know someone entered. Immediately we suspected, the person started running away.

In Nursing Hostel, you have a mixture of?

Toyosi: School of health, information management, IHT and nurses.

Okay, do you have male and female together in the hostel?

Toyosi: Yes.

What time do they lock and open the hostel gates?

Toyosi: They lock the hostel around 12am and they open around 5:30am or 6am.

And you said this happened around 2:47am. Definitely, the person must have been inside the hostel, right?

Toyosi: Yes.

Are you sure the door was locked before you went to sleep?

Toyosi: Yes, I was the one that locked the door actually but I guess one of my roommates went out to ease herself and forgot to close the door. That’s how the guy came inside.

Do you have porters?

Toyosi: The one we have is not functioning. They are just there.

Do you always see them there?

Toyosi: No, not everytime.

So they took some of your stuffs?

Toyosi: Yes. They took my power bank, wrist watch and money.

So when you raised the alarm, who came to your aid?

Toyosi: Those nurses guys came to ask us what’s happening. So we went to the security post to report and they said we should calm down and go to the main office to complain.

Around that time?

Toyosi: Yes, the security man already called them and the main office then he said we should go there ourselves so they’ll see us and follow us. We went there around past 5am and the security men at the main office followed us to the hostel and searched everywhere. Though they saw the bag that contained my friend’s credentials but they didn’t see the phones and the remaining items.

Okay, you said you were asked to go to the main office, where is this main office?

Toyosi: It’s inside UBTH but outside the Nursing Hostel

You could not go when the incident happened so you waited till past 5am?

Toyosi: Yes.

So when you got there, what did they tell you?

Toyosi: They told us to calm down. They gave us a form to fill what happened and what they took from us but there was no time. We were all angry and shouting so we dropped the form. They only spoke to one of our Hostel coordinator (our senior) then they followed us down to our Hostel.

And that was it?

Toyosi: Yes.

So nobody could say if the main gate of the hostel was actually locked?

Toyosi: It was locked when we got there around 2:50am and the security man was sleeping inside his own room.

You raised an alarm around 2:47am, got to the gate around 2:50am and the security man was sleeping. So are you trying to say that this thief might be an insider?

Toyosi: He’s actually an insider.

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