Echoes of the Lecture Theatre

By: Adesola Adebayo

They say the walls have ears, but in the lecture theatre, the walls have voices too.

They whisper of first-year dreams “freshers” with packed bags and bigger hopes. Of eyes wide open at 8:00 am, front-row seats, and scribbled notes like scriptures. Of lecturers who never use microphones and students who pretend they understand.

They murmur of second-year fatigue. The excitement fades. The gists before and during class now outweigh the class itself. Someone at the back is always charging their phone. A girl by the window is lost in thought. She’s not sad, just far away. Maybe in love. Maybe broke. Maybe both.

The echoes rise during tests. Murmurs swell into strategic whispers. Eye contact becomes language. A cough here, a tap there. “Number 4?” “Check number 4 for me abeg.” Morality and desperation wrestle silently.

In final year, the air grows thicker. Everyone is tired. Not just of classes, but of pretending. Laptops are now companions. CVs in progress. ASUU strike jokes fly like paper planes. Lecturers still talk. Students still listen. Some with ears, most with eyes on their phones.

And yet, somehow, the lecture theatre remains a memory factory. A place where friendships began. Where someone once laughed too loud, where a heart was broken during GES, where a poem was written in the margins of a course note.

It is not just four walls and a whiteboard; it is where voices linger. Of those who came, struggled, and left their echoes behind.