Her scream came just after 10 p.m., right in the middle of our usual hostel night chaos.

Someone was shouting from the other end of the corridor.

“Jesus! My phone is missing!”

At first, nobody took it seriously.

In a Nigerian university hostel, people shout all the time. Someone is looking for a roommate. Someone's food has disappeared from the kitchen. Someone is fighting over a charging socket. Someone has just received bad news from home.

So, we thought it was just another night.

Until the girl came running into the corridor.

“Please, who entered our room?”

Suddenly, everyone became quiet.

“Why?”

“My phone is gone. And my laptop too!”

That was when people started rushing out of their rooms.

“Check your things!”

“Where's your bag?”

“Has anyone seen my power bank?”

“Wait, my money was inside my locker!”

Within minutes, the entire hostel was in confusion.

Apparently, someone had entered one of the rooms while the occupants were outside and made away with several valuable items.

Phones.

A laptop.

Money.

Power banks.

Even someone's new pair of sneakers.

The funny thing was that, just a few hours earlier, everyone was minding their business.

Some people were cooking noodles with one eye on their pot and the other on their phone.

Others were charging their phones because NEPA had just brought light after several hours of darkness.

Some were sitting outside their rooms, gossiping about lecturers and discussing who was going to write the next test.

Nobody expected that before the night ended, the entire hostel would turn into a crime scene.

People started asking questions.

“Who was the last person to enter this room?”

“Did you see anybody suspicious?”

“Was the door locked?”

“Who has been moving around the hostel?”

Everybody suddenly became a detective.

One person said they saw a stranger earlier.

Another person insisted it was someone who lived in the hostel.

Someone else was already suggesting that the security man should be questioned.

Before long, different theories were flying around the hostel.

But the scariest part was that nobody knew exactly when the theft happened.

That night, nobody slept peacefully.

Every sound from the corridor became suspicious.

A door opened?

“Who is there?”

Someone walked past the room?

“Wait, where are you going?”

A phone fell from the top bunk?

“Jesus! I thought someone entered!”

The next morning, the hostel had completely changed.

People who used to leave their doors open were now locking them.

Phones were hidden under pillows.

Laptops were kept inside bags and locked away.

And everyone suddenly remembered the importance of knowing exactly who had access to their rooms.

Looking back, the whole experience was terrifying, but it also taught us something about hostel life.

In Nigerian universities, you learn a lot outside the classroom.

You learn how to survive without light.

How to share one bucket of water with three roommates.

How to stretch ₦2,000 until the end of the week.

How to recognize the sound of your roommate's footsteps.

And sometimes, you learn the hard way that you should never leave your valuables unattended.

That night started like every other hostel night.

But by morning, everyone had a story to tell.

Have you ever experienced theft or any other crazy incident in your university hostel? What's the wildest hostel memory you still can't forget? Share it with me in the comment section 🤭