By ACJ UNIBEN

The safety of students in the university’s Hall 2 female hostel has come under serious questioning following repeated incidents of a mysterious man, nicknamed “Clementus,” invading the hostel between 2–3am. Despite numerous complaints from traumatized residents, security officers have failed to apprehend the intruder, raising concerns about negligence and student welfare.

The issue of a man entering into the popular Hall 2 female hostel around the early hours of 2–3am has become a very reoccurring problem.

Parents believe so much that staying in the school hostel is safer than staying off-campus, and this is one of the reasons many students undergo the stress and hassle of booking hostels at the beginning of every session, carrying their slips in and out of the student affairs office in search of hostel spaces.

However, insecurity is a menace in Nigeria but the school hostel shouldn’t be easily intruded by just one man when we have so-called security officers who claim to parade the hostel at night but are still yet to catch this man who comes at 2–3am in the morning. If the security officers are really doing their work, this man would have been caught a long time ago.

This issue of a man entering the Hall 2 female hostel became very rampant last semester during exam period and has become progressively worse. The residents of Hall 2 have laid complaints to the hostel authority severally but were dismissed by these security officers who claimed that the students were either raising a false alarm or hallucinating.

This man, who the Hall 2 occupants have nicknamed “Clementus,” has targeted rooms with bad doors, oftentimes sneaking into the rooms at his routine time. One of the traumatized victims said she was jolted awake around 3am to find him touching her. Mind you, this victim has a mosquito net and a bunk curtain. She shouted and he fled immediately. This intruder has the record of running or walking like a ghost, you wouldn’t even hear his footsteps. People who have seen him well said he walks barefoot.

Another victim said he tried entering their room around his habitual time but luckily for them one of their roommates was awake reading, so she raised an alarm, waking other occupants of the room before he fled. The security said this was a false alarm, asking the victims to go and get their matriculation number, which is their strategy to scare the students from pursuing the issue.

Recently, another student woke up around 3am to urinate when she saw this intruder who started chasing her. Luckily, she was able to get into her room before he could catch up with her.

All these victims, including those not mentioned, have been left traumatised as the residents of this hostel now sleep with one eye open in fear of who’s next.

It is very unfortunate that the security officers who have been entrusted with securing the students are only selfishly trying to protect their jobs by dismissing students who complain about these repeated trespasses. They claim to have stationed themselves across all blocks and walk around the hostel at night with their torchlights, but if this were true, they could have caught the man a long time ago since he has a routine time for this invasion.

The students say they seriously do not know if it will take someone being physically harmed or abused by this intruder before proper actions will be taken. They call on the higher-ups like the Dean of Students and the Vice Chancellor of the university to take proper actions in tackling this matter, reminding the authorities that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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