Covenant University

Regarding my last post, I wasn't expecting as much attention as I got from the post but it is actually good to know you all took time out to read that boring stuff *lol*. Anyways, this time I’m here to nag and it breaks my heart to inform you that you’ll have to just deal with it.

I’m taking this IELTS exam soon and I’m probably just using this to work on my writing skills and actually I found out recently that you can’t use ‘due to’ and ‘reason’ in the same sentence, funny right? Like, you can’t say “The reason for his absence was due to the heavy rainfall”. I never knew this rule all my life of speaking English and that’s the issue I have with English language, the rules are just too much to bear!!!  I’m still not very certain about when to use ‘been’ or ‘being’ and ‘advice’ or ‘advise’, I just get confused and finally use one of them.  Also, in recent times, I have been having issues with spelling of words; for instance, ’spelt’ doesn't seem correct anymore but ‘spelled’ seems correct now, same thing goes for ‘dreamt’ and ‘dreamed’, ‘behaviour’ and ‘behavior’, ‘favour’ and ‘favor’ and a couple of other words. This is probably one of the disadvantages of moving to North America as writing can become somewhat clumsy because mixing up British spellings and American spellings is sometimes inevitable.   

That aside, I spoke to my sister, who is in her final year (it’s amazing how time flies, I can remember the first day I dropped her at school. Roun-tin can attest to this) at Covenant University (CU), on skype some few days back and she was complaining to me about Covenant University. For some reasons I don’t know, I get agitated when discussions about CU comes up. After reminding her of how I persuaded her not to go to CU then, how she didn’t listen and how she was head over heels for CU, I finally gave her the advice to please be careful as she only had a few more months to graduate. The honest truth is that it takes the grace of God to graduate from that school ‘dent free’ and by ‘dent free’ I mean a clean record because the way I see it is that most of the administrative staff are just there to ensure that you don’t graduate.

Fortunately, I am a graduate of CU and no matter how much I try to run from this fact, I still have very strong ties with CU. Covenant University definitely holds a large chunk of my history and a determining factor of some of the beliefs I hold today.  It’s quite fascinating when you meet people and they have the notion that all CU students are self-righteous. Well, I led a normal life when I was in CU and so did I when I left and this to some extend gave these people a more relaxed view of CU students/graduates. Morally, I wasn’t the best student and I even took some silly risks that when I look back now, I just  can’t phantom what I was thinking when I took those actions but then I guess it was my mother’s prayers that kept me. As a matter of fact, the only rule I held up high when I was in CU was, “Don’t get caught” and the clause that follows that rule is that “if you ever get caught, know the right person to meet”. I’m sure this rule might want to steer up some controversies but that’s all I’m saying about it and I’ll leave you to interpret it whichever way you choose to.

Covenant University rules are weird no doubt but in as much as I hate to admit, there are some habits CU imbibed in me that I am grateful for.  For example, I find it really difficult to sit on the floor and I see people that do differently; I mean: “Kings and Queens don’t sit on the floor”.  I know this is nothing but it’s just funny how these little talks shape our thought pattern.  In my opinion, some of their rules are useless and uncalled for. I feel the ban on use of phone should have been lifted by now because I see them not lifting this ban as just pride. It’s just share pride and the abuse of power on the institution’s administrative part. There’s still no justification for this rule only maybe for the fact that it has now become a trademark for the university.

Another rule that came up during the conversation was the ‘No pairing’ rule (Most people make the mistake of using ‘peering’). Anyways, I think I lost it when it got to this new topic. Learned the revised version of the handbook (for those who don’t know what the handbook is, it is a book containing the constitution of Hebron) says that no boy and girl should be seen together after 7 pm no matter the situation neither  should they be seen holding hands or touching at any time of the day. Ok, fine! I understand the fact that you say no interaction between the female and male folks after 7 pm because as we all know, after this time 'bad-bad' things happen in the dark :d . But when you say that they should not hold hands or touch in anyway because that will lead to ‘Konji’ and when they are held with ‘konji’, since they can’t have sex in school, they go to their hostel to masturbate. Seriously, at this point, I lost it. That is the worst justification to an action I have ever heard, that’s just dumb. The next thing I said was; “it just means that’s what this people themselves go to their houses to do”. When they further asked the DSA (Dean of Student Affairs), of which I have a personal beef for the present one, if he holds or touch women, he claims to be married and he doesn't hold or touch any other woman. That’s just hypocrisy at a new height and the honest truth is that’s just what most CU staffs and students are, Hypocrites.  The staffs themselves don’t practice what they preach and most of the students have a dual life, the life they lead in school and the one they do outside the school. Covenant University ain’t producing new generation of leaders but new generation of hypocrites.

Another thing I noticed about the rules in CU is that most of their rules are not comprehensive enough and are left to be interpreted at the discretion of the administrative staff. Different rules can be interpreted by different people in different ways and this just makes the students more vulnerable. I remembered an incident that happened in my first year when my roommate reported me for having secular songs on my laptop. As a sharp-boy, I shift-deleted my music folder, so nothing could be found on my system. Meanwhile, I still had a music video “Runaway Love by Mary J Blige and Ludacris” on the laptop, well, I didn't consider that song a secular song. To cut the long story short, after long hours of keeping me in the ‘Revo’s’ office and they couldn't find anything on the laptop, they said Runaway Love is a secular song because Ludacris featured in it and so I was charged for possession of secular songs but luckily I was pardoned.

In summary, all I’m just trying to say is that Covenant University is not doing so much of a great job in preparing their students for the world outside the walls of Canaanland. Being ‘religious’ doesn't get you the things you want outside Covenant University. I don’t see anything spectacular about the University and sometimes I just can’t help but wonder why a lot of parents still keep falling in love with the school but I don't think I'll let any of my wards attend the school. This is my opinion and I’m not trying to impose it on you, so I suggest you try not to impose yours on me in the comments.