It is unclear why
and when people started naming this unspectacular place at the University of
Ibadan, Nigeria, like this. The tarmac is a flat, large, tree-lined and well asphalted
parking space, that officially belongs to the adjoining Chapel of the
Resurrection, traditionally dominated by Anglican and Methodist denominations. One
would find the campus' main mosque next to it, and, on the other side of the
road, the "Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Catholic Chapel". Almost everyone
on the campus knows about the tarmac, where it is, and what happens there.
During the day, the parking space fulfils its formal task: hosting cars. But in
the evening, cars have left and people, mostly students, invade the tarmac.
On the campus,
the sun goes down behind a palms' skyline, an exception in a city of an
estimated – not officially - 6 million souls seeking shelter from the burning
sun and heavy rains under an ocean of rusty roofs. Ibadan's famous hills are
like green islands emerging from an infinity of buildings, houses and roads
that fade away in the horizon's smog.
And although deans of faculties and
non-academic staff sometimes cut trees on the campus for aesthetic matters or
for any other obscure reasons, the university campus is probably the only
public accessible greenest space in town where one can admire a sunset
listening birds singing in a rich natural environment. But this is not what
students aim to do when they gather every evening of the week on the tarmac.
Take a seat at
the edge of the place, on these white concrete benches on the Chapel's side,
and you'll find students who, individually or in tiny groups, walk back and
forth, whispering inaudible words. Other would sit right next to you, often
listening to sermons through their earphones. In the middle of the tarmac, two
girls walk in circle side by side, making convulsive gestures. They speak, but
not to each other. Sometimes, one of them would go down on her knees and talk
to the asphalt, or through the asphalt, even, as if to address her prayers and
wishes to the underworld. Heads bowed towards the ground, or held up high, eyes
shut, frowning, supplicating, psalms of the hands facing up, or arms raised
towards the sky; Pentecostal students seem to perform their prayers to
establish a connection between
the earth and the universe. This performance is
fostered by the many Pentecostal fellowships for undergraduate students present
on campus. They gather regularly on the tarmac.
To sum up
briefly, Pentecostals aimed to break with certain theological interpretations
and religious practices of mainstream Churches, flatten old clerical
hierarchies, and, eventually, free the Word of God. Its adherents emphasise
the baptism through the Holy Spirit; its presence during worship manifests when
practitioners start "speaking in tongues", a divine gift. Speaking in
tongues doesn't happen just out of the blue, or systematically. One must "train"
if one wants to achieve a certain level of proficiency. Individuals develop
their 'own' style of tongue-speaking like their own language of sounds. This
collective worship setting enables them to practice, get inspired by others,
let it flow, and let it go.
The tarmac is a
favourite playground, a field of predilection for this kind of practices. It is
for free, open and outside, large enough, there is public light at night. It is
conveniently, centrally located on campus, in the middle of the earliest three
religious buildings: The Mosque, the Catholic Chapel, and the Protestant
Chapel. The latter was the first space of worship built in 1954 on campus,
shortly after founding the University of Ibadan in 1948. It sometimes hosts
ceremonies like the recent celebration of the university's 70th
Foundation Day. The Chapel regularly organises worship and educational
activities for pupils, students, and holds frequent services for people who
mainly live on the campus. Therefore, it tolerates the presence and practices
of Pentecostal youth on the parking space. The second wave of Pentecostal
revival started in Nigeria in the 1970s, often on university campuses. Youth literally
went out of the traditional religious buildings and started worshipping more
freely, and this is how places like the Chapel's car park have been
appropriated. Now, it is socially widely accepted and has become part of the
campus’ landscape.
Student Pentecostal fellowships usually gather in the
evening, sometimes filling the space with hundreds of people, dispatched in
smaller groups like passengers waiting at a crowded terminal's boarding gates.
Groups would naturally use the whole width and length of the area to avoid that
others’ cacophony mutes their own sermons. Well organised fellowships usually
succeed to perform a prayer service or a bible study on the tarmac through a carefully
rhythmed, although acoustical, succession of actions. As members slowly arrive
and wait for the session to begin, they would start "warming-up” by
pronouncing dimly, individually, some prayers, words, or sounds. Then, joint prayers,
singings, sermons, healing performances would follow, punctuated by short but
louder and louder tongue-speaking interludes, until the group would reach the
final take-off, a seemingly "out of control", heated, collective
frenzy. However, since March 2020, the tarmac atmosphere has been very
different for some reasons. The first is the academic and non-academic staff
strikes. The second is the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic that led to
schools' closure.
Asides engaging
in religious activities as a form of devotion and social formation, individuals
and groups often utilise religious references and performances as
statement-making against university management in Nigerian university campuses.
When on strike, the university's non-academic staff union often would
appropriate the Yoruba traditional religion's ritual performances irrespective
of their faith. These acts include the frying of bean-cake, a ritual for
mourning the dead, processions with a coffin or obituary style posters
celebrating the end of a 'tyrant' leader's tenure and staging of sacrificial
sites with Òrìṣà effigies. The latter was staged again in February by the
university's non-academic staff during their strike. They placed what looked
like an Èṣù effigy, adorned with pepper and with palm oil circling the floor
around the effigy. The event is probably the most discussed religion-related
issue at the University of Ibadan before the schools' closure.
The disruption
caused by the strike and school closure also meant that religious programmes' participation
witnessed some changes. Likewise, spaces often appropriated for religious
programmes became deserted. The tarmac remained and resonated empty during
several months. Like some of their parent and affiliate churches, some
students' fellowships tried to close the gaps by moving some of their
activities online. They conducted virtual programming via social media
platforms like WhatsApp and online radio platform such as Mixlr. For instance,
the Ibadan Varsity Christian Union fellowship members convened weekly on these
platforms for prayer meetings, bible study, and prayer and fasting sessions.
A lot have now
changed, in November most worship places on the university campus resumed
physical services with churches and mosque opening to congregants again. People
began to trickle into the tarmac; a space that has not been in much use because
of COVID-19 restriction measures and students’ absence on campus. Although the
university is still closed to students, some students staying off-campus who
either returned from home and some who live in Ibadan have started to reconvene
for physical fellowships. Some other individuals in groups of two or there that
appear not to be students have also begun to troop on the tarmac for prayer
sessions. Since mid-November, a few Redeemed Christian Postgraduate Fellowship’s
(RCPGF) students began to meet on the tarmac on Wednesday evenings. Even though
the RCPGF holds its programme in another part of the campus, they have been
using the tarmac because of its open and accessible character since the
university is still officially closed.
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