“OAU Students'’ Versus ‘'CNG Buses'’: Who Won?
Going down memory lane, as though it were only yesterday, it all began as a gesture of goodwill: a donation by “Màmá Onínú Ire,” the most highly ranked woman of the nation.
A legacy gift to her roots, a symbol of progress rolled into Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) on wheels powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), courtesy of her distinguished alumna.
Photo Credit: Ezekiel Ogunniyi
The optics were impeccable. The ancient citadel of learning now had modern buses, cleaner energy, and what appeared to be a total transport revolution. Unfortunately, what followed was less of a revolution and more of a rapid evacuation.
The first decisive move came swiftly and without hesitation: the long-standing “Town-Gboro” transport system was immediately disbanded within campus. The old system was retired with immediate effect, replaced overnight by a new system still learning how to exist.
The CNG buses, now known as OAU shuttles, began operations immediately—and so did the queues, a natural consequence of their insufficiency: 50 buses and 30 tricycles for over 30,000 students. Day by day, the queues stretched, multiplied, and evolved from lines into daily commitments.
Students, unfamiliar with such a transport system, discovered that movement across campus had suddenly become a scheduled activity—one requiring patience (even in the face of deadlines), strategy, and occasionally, resignation.
Then came economic realities. With “Town-Gboro” buses pushed outside campus, transport fares developed a new personality. Prices rose with confidence; what used to be a simple ride became a layered journey, sometimes requiring multiple payments, including the now-famous “double-ticket policy” for longer distances.
In fact, the tickets themselves became a separate academic pursuit, as they were not always available within core academic areas. Acquiring one could feel like qualifying for a limited resource. Missing a ticket meant missing a bus; missing a bus meant missing a class; and missing a class, at this point, was no longer unusual—the lecturers themselves understood.
At some point, students stopped pretending this was an adjustment. Lectures began to thin out; attendance became optional—not by choice, but by circumstance. Conversations shifted from inconvenience to frustration, and from frustration to organisation.
In April, a congress was called. Voices were raised—not in chaos, but in articulation.
The Students’ Union positioned itself as expected, relaying concerns, presenting grievances, and attempting to negotiate between lived reality and institutional assurance.
Then came the protests: peaceful, visible, deliberate. In response, management saw something else. They called it “unruly behaviour,” stating that “roads were blocked, order was threatened, safety was invoked.”
Photo Credit: ACJOAU
The narrative pivoted from transport inefficiency to student misconduct with remarkable efficiency. Hence, a three-week mid-semester break was announced on the very day of the protest, with immediate effect.
Students were instructed to vacate campus, but was it to restore order or simply to remove those affected by the transport crisis; that remained unclear. Movement, at last, was achieved: students moved out, trekking with loads on their head, as though they had been expecting it all along.
On the second day, while students were still departing, intervention arrived in the form of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).
Photo Credit: ACJOAU
Dialogue was initiated, presence established, demands made. Impact, however, remained elusive.
Photo Credit: ACJOAU
The break stood. Three weeks passed—not as resolution, but as suspension. Then came resumption.
Students returned, perhaps expecting adjustment, improvement, or at the very least, evidence that the disruption had produced results. What they met instead was familiarity: the same buses, the same queues (albeit shorter, as several students had yet to return), the same pricing complications. Dissatisfaction resurfaced almost immediately.
The system remained insufficient. The cost remained high for some students. The logistics remained fragile. The memory of a three-week academic disruption lingered, now reframed not as a solution, but as a consequence of resisting the system.
Almost two weeks after resumption, the struggle persists—not loudly, not dramatically, but consistently—in queues, missed deadlines, quiet dissatisfaction that has outlived both protest cycles and institutional responses alike.
And so, the question presents itself, no longer rhetorically: ‘'OAU Students’' versus ‘'CNG Buses'’—who won?
The answer is not far fetched, students organised congresses, held protests, vacated and returned to campus; yet the system remained. The CNG buses are still running gallantly, its policies still standing, the experience still unchanged.
In a contest between OAU students and the buses donated by “Màmá Onínú Ire,” the students participated actively, but the new system prevailed.
Therefore, "the CNG buses won.”
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