The main campus of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, has been thrown into panic as some unidentified students have reportedly contracted the coronavirus disease.
The university’s vice-chancellor, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who neither confirmed nor denied the report, told PREMIUM TIMES on the phone that the institution’s management was in a meeting over the matter.
Mr Ogundipe said the institution would soon make its position on the issue public.
“We are already in a management meeting. We will speak on it soon,” he told our reporter.
Meanwhile, this newspaper’s independent findings revealed that a sophomore female Law student is one of the confirmed cases.
“We learnt she was taken to the counselling unit before being taken to an isolation centre,” a classmate of the infected student, who does not want to be quoted, told our reporter on the phone.
Other students also said the university authorities became more forceful and strict with the enforcement of coronavirus protocols on Tuesday.
Departmental heads and deans of faculties were said to be moving round the classrooms to ensure compliance with the use of nose masks and sanitisers.
The dean of the faculty of law, Ige Bolodeoku, was said to have moved from one classroom to another at the faculty to compel both staff and students to obey the rules.
He was said to be visibly worried and threatened anyone found loittering the corridors and those without masks that he would send them out of the university.
Another student, who also craved anonymity, said; “Earlier this morning, an official of the law student society (LSS) had told people to put on their masks. The LASS official’s name is Aisha, and she told everyone to be careful because of COVID-19.
So by 9a.m, we were having CIL 212 (Law of Contract) when the dean entered the classroom and chased some students out for not using nose masks. Even those who did not use theirs properly were asked to move out.”
Sanwo-Olu’s warning
The development is a confirmation of the notice issued on Sunday by the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who threatened to sanction anyone found to have flouted the established protocol to curb the spread of the infection in the state.
Mr Sanwo-Olu in a statement personally signed by him said the third wave of the infection was imminent in the country.
He gave statistics of the gradual rise in the number of cases with an increase from about one per cent positive results of tested specimens as of the end of June to about six per cent rate by July 8.
Varsity’s past experience
The university had earlier in January lost some prominent scholars to the pandemic.
A former vice-chancellor at the university, Oye Ibidapo-Obe, died on January 3, and another, a former dean of students’ affairs on the campus, Duro Ajeyalemi, was also claimed by the pandemic on January 6.
The university’s former dean of law faculty and currently the attorney-general and commissioner for justice in Oyo State, South-west Nigeria, Oyelowo Oyewo, was also infected by the virus. Mr Oyewo, however, recovered after spending some weeks in isolation in Lagos.
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