Joseph Omoniyi came into The Standard office and wanted to have the latest edition of the university newspaper. He pointed at The Daily Monitor and The New Vision which lay on my desk inquiring which of the two could be the UCU newspaper (The Standard). I was shocked because I thought every Ugandan university student knew these two leading dailies. I paused for a while and asked him if he was a Ugandan.

Background
Omoniyi was born on April 11 1993 in Ogun State in Nigeria. He is the last born in a family of seven children. His parents are missionaries currently working in Southern Sudan. He went to:
lStaff Primary School, Sokoto, Nigeria.
lYanduste Primary School, Kano State Nigeria.
lNamu Model Secondary School, Nigeria.
l University of Maiduguri, Borno state, Nigeria.
lUganda Christian University.

 Journey to UCU
Before coming to Uganda Christian University, Joseph was studying law in his first-year at University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. 
A spate of killings and terrorist attacks from Bako Haram, an Islamic extremist organisation forced him to search for an alternative university.  He browsed the Internet and was able to come across Uganda Christian University. Omoniyi shared the idea with his parents and they accepted to bring him to UCU.
Part of the reason they brought him to UCU was he was going to be nearer to his parents who are missionaries in Southern Sudan. He joined UCU in September this year and like anybody else, he faces challenges in trying to adapt to the new environment.
The Ugandan food

Joseph says that he has really found it hard eating food that is prepared in the UCU dining. He says almost all foods lack that flavour that he is used to.
“My God! The food taste is horrible. The meat, posho and rice do not have the flavour that I want,” he says.
The most challenging part of the meals has been the beans that are prepared as sauce in Uganda. He says that in Nigeria, beans are just boiled, water drained out and then eaten separately.
“We do not eat beans as sauce in Nigeria. It is just eaten separately.”
The relief from these strange foods came when he was recently taken by a friend to a Nigerian restaurant in Kampala where he had a sumptuous meal. He ate like never before.
Asked about how finds chapatti, he says it is okay. “Chapatti is similar to a rice cake prepared in back home in Nigeria. It is delicious,”he says. Nevertheless, he is adapting to it.
The Ugandan English

Omoniyi finds the accent a little different and funny. He says the English tends towards Luganda. He recalls a time he saw a lady exclaiming “eeeh!” He thought she was crying.
Back in Nigeria, the exclaiming is a bit different. Somebody will normally say, ‘Chineke wooo!’. Classmates and lecturers find it hard to pick his Nigerian accent.
“I’m always frustrated in class because whenever I want to ask a question, the lecturers always tell me that they don’t understand what I say,” he says.

General  environment

Joseph has already had a brush with the law in Uganda.
Recently, he had to miss classes as he tried to recover his laptop from security. A student had claimed that the laptop he had looked like one he had lost before. The security came and confiscated it for some time.  “It was difficult recovering it,” he says.
The Nigerian accent has also betrayed him several times. When he asks for the price of something, the traders often quote a higher figure. He went to buy a mosquito net and the vendor told him that it cost Sh. 80,000.

 He is also not the only Nigerian in UCU as he thought in the beginning.
In fact, he has a classmate who is also from Nigeria. He has so far met about six students who are Nigerians. He has also involved himself in music activities. He plays the keyboard so well. He has played in during Community Worship.

Kampala and Abuja
 Kampala is small when compared to the Nigerian capital Abuja. He says Kampala is dirty when you compare the two towns. He says the Nigerian countryside is unoccupied and full bushes when compared to Uganda. “You can travel for a long distance without seeing houses but bushes, “he says.
Lifestyle.

 Ugandans are warm people but he notes that they like to party a lot and are also not fast in their actions. He also adds that we Ugandans over hug. “Hugging is not for everyone in Nigeria but in Uganda people freely hug each other,” he says. But he says in general, the people really look the same.

Education
He says Ugandans take a lot of time in the pre-tertiary level education. He says that the primary segment in Nigeria takes five to six years to complete.
At secondary level however, the number of classes are the same. It is because of this reason, he says, that one can find an 18 year old student at university in Nigeria.
He also says that the law course that he is going to study in Uganda for four years takes five years back home and an extra year for the bar course.
Hobbies

Omoniyi loves music. Back in Nigeria he has a music album released and plays instruments.
 He  he is in the choir and that is why you will most likely see this young lad enthusiastically playing the  keyboard at Nkoyoyo Hall.