ONU JOHN ONWE 
It came to pass that I gained admission into University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria (popularly called Uniben) to study law.
In October 1987, we were ushered into Uniben and I think I was not disappointed in the spectacle I beheld as the well-paved roads serviced with street-lighting system and the well-manicured flower-beds and the well-developed Faculties of Engineering, Sciences and Arts and Social Sciences buildings were magnificent enough to intimidate every Jambite to submission in appreciation of the superior architectural and landscape environment that are thousand times superior to our community or federal/state secondary schools we were coming from.
As it turned out, the major difficulty students had was inadequate hostel accommodation for it appeared the university stagnated in building hostels to contain exploding student population.
I was allotted a hostel, Hall 3 Room 306. We were four legal occupants – all jambites. Each of us was coaxed by older students not officially entitled to allotment of accommodation to take them as ‘’squatters.’’
I chose one Ugochukwu Asoegwu while my roommates, the other three had their ‘’ respective squatters.’’ At the end, we had about six official “squatters” and innumerable unofficial ‘’squatters’’ as we were about eleven or twelve occupants of the 16-square-feet room. After registration and settling down in the hostel, studies started.
Most of us coming from villages and provincial towns battled to adapt and blend with the new environment. In this social milieu, the “squatters” offered invaluable service as ‘life-coaches’ as they warned, advised and directed the jambites on proper way of conduct and sources of danger. Also, if the “squatters” are in the same course of study or discipline their services became doubly invaluable.
My “squatter” Ugochukwu was a year-two law student, so he was of immense assistance to me and my other roommate and Law student, Benson Igonor by warning us of the danger of accepting offers to belong to one campus fraternity or the other which Nigerians labeled ‘cult’. The journey through undergraduate studies in Uniben was not easy.
First, Law Faculty had no faculty building which lack sentenced students to beggarly ‘squattings’ in diverse buildings mainly Eco-Stat (Economics/Statistics) lecture hall at Faculty of Social Sciences.
As we progressed in high classes, we were shuffled into lecture halls of Faculties of Engineering and Sciences, improvised halls in Central Cafeteria, Minor Cafeteria that eventually became Faculty of Agriculture.
In year one, the going was good as we easily surmounted the elective courses in Arts and Social sciences and the only law course Philosophy 101 was an ideological indoctrination program by Mr. Theodopolous but it was thoroughly entertaining what with its combustive questioning of the idea of God and everything else.
So, year one was good and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were about 90 students. But in year two, we were joined by almost a hundred transfer-students and direct entry students.
It was at this stage that many mature students joined to make the class thoroughly variegated and diverse. In year two, we were introduced to contract, criminal law, constitutional law, legal system and legal method and Torts. Contract was taught by Mr. Hercy who appeared spent academically and was recruited to fill a vacuum.
His theatrics was comic relief. Solomon Ukhuegbe who taught constitutional law was fresh from the graduate school and it seemed we were subjected to blistering reviews of his dissertations and this came to light in the first semester examinations when he combined legal and ambiguous terms to couch his questions.
Of course, many students failed his course and there was uproar. Criminal law was taught by the Dean of Law, Prof. Ofori Amankwa, whose case law citations were usually 1800s and he declared them as recent cases.
The journey through undergraduate studies in Uniben was not easy
In years three and four, we encountered many fine lecturers and we graduated with Uniben miserly ‘good grades’ of maximum of second class (upper and lower divisions, third class and pass).
Socially, Uniben is a place to be. It has a distinctive and peculiar culture which reflect the diverse cultural zones (Southeast, South-South, Southwest and lower North Central states) that were, and still remain its ‘catchment areas’.
I do not know what gave Uniben its social upbeat that passing through Uniben impacted and still impacts social graces, supremely self confidence and social intelligence that last a life time.
Uniben was famous for its drinking joints that a visitation panel that investigated the frequent crises in the school penciled down as contributory factor.
Inspite of the turbulent nature of its community, Uniben remained and still remains the best culturally compact and coherent community and socially well-organised school. It has the headquarters of two well known campus fraternities, namely the Neo Black Movement alias Black Axe and the Maphites.
The clashes between these fraternities gave it a bad image. Some social clubs such as Skomit organised Miss Skomit, a beauty pageant, the other entirely male society that organised Mr. Cave (a body building contest) and numerous other social and tribal unions that kept Uniben pulsating throughout the year.
I love all these and endeavored to savour whatever they had to offer to the public. In 1991, this class graduated and went to Lagos Law School. It was at the Law School that this class established itself as the best of the classes that ever passed through Uniben Law Faculty.
At the completion of the Law School program the Bar Examinations took place and the results were released. But before the release of the results, Mr. Babatunde Ibironke, S.A.N., the Director of the Law School, came to the Main Auditorium and addressed the students and declared that the best school in that year 1992 Bar Examinations was University of Benin.
He declared that Uniben was notorious in its violent crises but that that slur has not taken the sheen out of the University’s consistent brilliant academic performances in yearly Bar Examinations.
As it turned out, University of Benin had fielded three Second Class Upper Division candidates, some tens of Second Class Lower Division candidates and other classes of degrees but in the Final Bar Examinations, Uniben candidates made two First Class, and these two were Second Class Lower Division and well over twelve Second Class Upper Division.
