The study examined institutional repositories as essential digital resources for the promotion of scholarship in Nigerian universities. Institutional repositories gather and preserve intellectual outputs in electronic form, such as dissertations, seminar papers, conference proceedings, working papers, technical reports, and other materials from academic institutions. While some Nigerian public universities have established institutional repositories, the situation is quite different in most of the private universities in the country. Hence the focus of this particular study on Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, Nigeria. The study sought to find out the role of institutional repositories in the promotion of scholarship in the University as well as the challenges. The study was guided by 3 specific objectives and 3 research questions that determined the benefits, awareness and challenges of institutional repositories. The study adopted descriptive statistics. The population of the study was 30 library personnel that comprised 10 professionals, 11 para-professionals and 9 supporting staff. There was no need for sampling due to small size of the population. A questionnaire created by the researcher was the tool used to collect data. The Cronbach alpha method was used to determine the items' internal consistency, obtaining an overall reliability score of 0.87. The on-the-spot method of collecting data was used. Findings indicated that majority of the respondents are not aware of the presence of IR in the university. Also, inadequate funding was one of the major challenges associated with institutional repository. The study recommends that awareness about IR by private university management should be established.