Parlous state of campus hostels
Many public tertiary institutions lack sufficient hostels to accommodate their teeming students. CAMPUSLIFE reporters visited the hostels of various institutions and discovered that the blame for the state of the hostels is shared by the management of the institutions and the students.
MANY students of tertiary institutions depend on campus hostels because they are cheaper than off-campus accommodation.
But only a few public tertiary institutions can boast of adequate hostels. Fewer still can boast of hostels which are in good condition.
A visit by CAMPUSLIFE to some hostels run by the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUTMINNA), University of Lagos (UNILAG), University of Benin (UNIBEN), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Federal Polytechnic, Bida, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Federal Polytechnic Offa (FEDPOFFA), revealed that their facilities are in bad shape.
UNILAG
By Babatunde Kawthar
Though the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has 13 undergraduate halls of residence, it can only provide accommodation for about 20 percent of its students.This problem has put a lot of pressure on its hostels as majority of its students have resorted to squatting with their colleagues. As a result, the hostels are congested.
The male halls are more congested than the female halls because men find it easier to squat. Also, two male undergraduate halls are under renovation.
A room in a male hostel allocated to only eight students can be inhabited by 20 students. According to Jude, a final year student, the least number of occupants in any room he had ever stayed in is twice the number of those allocated to the room officially.
“See, once you get accommodation, just know that the least you can be in that room is twice the original occupants. In extreme cases you can even have multiples of four,” he said.
The pressure is evident in the condition of the rooms, the kitchenette and rest rooms. The halls are dirty.
“I can never stay in Makama Hall. Yes, many of UNILAG hostels are dirty but the condition of Makama is worse,” a female student lamented.
Chuma, a resident of Eni-Njoku Hall, said he watches what he eats to avoid using the hostel toilets.
“I can’t eat just anything; the toilets are too dirty and I have to avoid anything that will upset my stomach. The smell from the toilets can make you throw up,” he said.
The situation of the toilets in these halls, many believe, can be reversed if there is constant water and power supply to the halls. But some students do not think so. According to them, the neatest halls actually have inadequate power supply.
Adam, a year four student, said: “Biobaku and Kofo seem to be neater than most hostels and they rarely have light, unlike Moremi and other hostels on campus with better power supply. I think the neatness of the hall is dependent on management.”
While the institution has banned squatting by ensuring only legal occupants are allowed into halls of residence, this policy has proved ineffective. Off-campus halls, which could serve as alternatives, are too expensive for some students. This makes them to sleep in classrooms and areas designated for overnight reading. Faculties of Engineering and Environmental Sciences are the rendevous for these students.
Besides squatting, CAMPUSLIFE observed that many halls are not well managed with maintenance rarely done.
Except in extreme cases, such as when the the students protested to draw the attention of its management to the problem of bedbugs, and the institution was forced to fumigate all its halls of residence and change the mattresses, the halls management prefer to do surface maintenance. For instance, the outside walls are repainted to give the impresion that renovation was being done than fix the toilets and bathrooms.
Also, some halls lack fire extinguishers and fire alarms. While this does not make the hall completely unsafe, it puts residents at risk. A resident of Kofoworola Hall said: ‘Some days ago, there was a small fire outbreak caused by electricity, water could not be used to quench it. Students had to scream to call the attention of the hall officials. This is something we could have quenched with a fire extinguisher.’
UNILAG prides itself as institution of first choice for students and the nation’s beautiful bride and hence must strive for excellence in all aspects, including students’welfare. Certainly, students said, it could do more to improve the conditions of its halls, and should not while doing this, convert the halls to postgraduate halls or make them unnecessarily expensive as we have seen in some cases.
OAU
By Gabriel Ayodeji
Living in the halls of residences at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) is an exercise in endurance. Students are at the receiving end of the good and the bad. One reason is the large population of hostel residents. There are about 35,000 students in OAU with about 11,000 residing in the school’s hostels, which include four for the males, four for the females and one for the male and female Postgraduate students.
As one of the second generation institutions in the country, having being built in 1963, OAU has most of her public facilities erected over 50 years ago. Many of these, including the hostels, are poorly maintained.
CAMPUSLIFE discovered that some rooms in Moremi, Fajuyi and Awolowo Halls of Residence were abandoned for years, following a fire outbreak.These rooms have remained unrenovated ever since, despite the pressing needs for more hostels on campus.
The pressure of population on hostel facilities is a threat to hygiene. Students cook indiscriminately in spaces not meant for such, leaving the drains clogged and the surroundings messy.
An Estate Management student, Ahmed Jinadu, attributed the dilapidation of the hostels partly to population explosion.
“The contractors that built OAU in 1960s never envisaged the population we have in the halls of residence. In a way, this makes cleaning of backyards and corridors quite strenuous as students were never meant to cook at their backyards – as it is done now – causing an accumulation of liquid and solid wastes in the hostel because of overpopulation,” he said.
Apart from inadequate accommodation, utilities, such as water and power, are a luxury. Two out of three pumping machines at the University’s Dam are damaged leaving the institution with just one machine which can efficiently work for eight hours. With most of the reservoirs in the halls disconnected from pipelines, water has become erratic in the past three years because it takes little time for the functioning reservoirs to get empty.
Ogunrinu Gbenga Oladayo, a Student’s Union executive, described the maintenance culture as ‘poor’, blaming the university’s management for its awful disposition towards the dilapidation of the facilities.
“After the tenure of Prof. Rogers Makanjuola as Vice Chancellor, the eras of two VCs afterwards before the emergence of the Acting Vice Chancellor, Prof Anthony Elujoba, marked the periods of setbacks for the institution. The huge amount of money allocated by the Federal Government for the maintenance of hostels and implementations of other projects were diverted into personal purses at the detriment of students,” he claimed.
UNN
By James Ojo
Overcrowding is a problem at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).
Eruesegbefe GodsRay, a resident of Eni-Njoku, a male Hostel, said sometimes 12 students were forced to stay in hostel rooms meant for fewer than that number.
“They should address the issue of overcrowding in the hostels. In a particular room, you can see up to 12 students,” he lamented.
Though the female hostels are slightly better, Nkem Jika said about seven students stay in a room in Akpabio, a female hostel.
“Seven or six students in a room makes it congested,” she said.
But the students commended the school management for regular supply of electricity and water. However, they lamented the poor state of the hostel toilets as well as the environment, which they said was usually unkempt.
Hinweokwu Ugwuanyi, who stays at Nkrumah Hall (female hostel), said the toilets are hardly clean.
“The only issue we have in the hostel is the toilet end. Most times, the place is messed up. But in other areas, they are really trying. There is constant light and water,” she said.
Eruesegbefe said the lack of water supply in the hostels affects the toilets cleanliness.
“The toilets are few. Sometimes, everywhere around the hostels are messed up. They should put an overhead tank so that they can be flushing directly,” she said.
Juliet Ozioko, a resident of Akpabio Hostel, said the toilets are dirty because of cleaners’ inability to do work well, and poor tiolets habits by students.
“On the side of toilet facility, it is appalling. Cleaners do not clean the toilets well and some students do not even help matters. You will see some girls pouring faeces on the floor of toilets, thereby messing up and stinking. It is bad for our health,” she said.
Juliet also said water is not available in all hostels, adding that power supply is inadequate.
“The four necessities of life are food, water, light and toilet facilities. However, in UNN not all of these are made available to the students. In the area of water not all hostels enjoy the privilege of having adequate water supply. Hostels, such as Akintola, Akpabio and Okpara, have steady adequate water supply while others do not.
On power supply, she said: “When students really need it to read at night, it is not provided but during the day when we are at lecture halls, it is there wasting.”
Ebong Solomon, a resident of Alvan Ikoku male Hostel, described the state of facilities in the hostel as “very poor”.
“The school needs to do more. The vice chancellor has been trying to improve the facilities but the pace of the refurbishing must be increased. Security has been beefed up by putting iron doors in all the rooms in the hostel but the general outlook or appearance of the hostel must be improved. The electrical connections must be fixed. The hostel needs to be painted after several decades,” he said.
FUTMINNA
Abdulsalam Mahmud
When students of the Federal University Minna talk about their hostels, the poor state of toilet facilities is tops their minds.
CAMPUSLIFE visited the ‘Block A’ Male Hostel of Gidan Kwano Campus. The facility is in a state of disrepair. But the students are to be blamed for bad toilets habit.
The toilets and bathrooms compartment on the second floor of the hostel block were poorly lit. The floor is slippery – the result of repeated urination and excretion. Worse still, it smells. A tall student, was seen urinating on the corridor without entering the toilet.
Another student, who was waiting to use the bathroom, hissed in disgust, his mouth covered with a handkerchief, to keep out the offensive smell from assaulting his nostrils.
“I no no why some guys no go ever get sense,” he said in disgust. “Person don big, but go still dey behave like animal’’, he lamented as he made his way to find a relatively clean toilet.
Meanwhile, a chocking smell of fresh excreta from the deserted bathroom hit the toilet area.
In virtually all the toilets on the block, an army of flies was seen perching on the urine-soaked cistern, lobbies and faeces-embellished toilets’ floors, even as a foul, and toxic odours emanated from indiscriminate urination.
Usman Mustapha, an engineering student who resides in the hostel, decried the deplorable condition of the toilets, adding that lack of functional water system and bad toilet etiquettes by some students had made them unsafe for use.
He said: “It is quite unfortunate and worrisome that students, who ought to have common sense and be properly cultured, misuse the toilets. On several occasions, I have seen mature students urinating right at the entrance lobby, instead of going inside toilets. At times, if you are not lucky, a mountain of faeces will greet you by the time you enter to shower in the bathroom.
“In fact, those of us whose rooms are close to the toilets and bathrooms are the worst hit, as the offensive smells of urine and excreta that pervade our rooms cause discomfort.”
Usman lamented that some cleaners employed to tidy the toilets do not do their work well. He also pleaded with the university management to build more toilets and renovate the damaged ones.
“There is need for cleaners to be adequately provided with vital cleaning instruments, sanitisers and detergents to aid their work,’’ he added.
The experience is not different for Patience Uzor, who stays in a female hostel on the Bosso Campus of the university. She said that some students dread taking their baths and using the hostel’s toilets because they are filthy.
She lamented that the floors of some toilets are littered with blood-stained sanitary towels, urine and excreta. She blamed the school management for the problem.
“It is true that students contribute to the deplorable state of the toilets through improper and unhygienic handling of the overstretched toilet facilities. However, the school management cannot be exonerated either.
“The fact that most of our toilets’ lightings are not functioning, regular supervision of cleaners is not done, and some toilets’ doors are damaged, corroded and having cracked walls show the indifference of the university management towards students’ good health. A visitor coming to the hostel toilets for the first time doesn’t need a soothsayer to tell him that they haven’t being a beneficiary of any renovation work since they were built,’’ Patience said.
A top management staff member, who refused to be named because he was not mandated to speak on the issue, however, said that students who reside in campus hostels should not treat their hygiene with kid gloves.
He said: “They say charity begins at home. Students, who misuse hostel toilets, can be described as uncultured. They lack good morals and proper upbringing right from their homes. The questions are: Are they exhibiting the same attitude in their various homes? Do some of them have cleaners or maids who tidy their toilets and bathrooms at their home? What about the off-campus students? Who clean their bathrooms and toilets? I think it is high time our youths and students had value-reorientation. Let them develop a culture of properly maintaining facilities which the university management has provided for their own use and benefit.’’
UNILORIN
By Toyin Ali
At the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), the number of students who live off campus are more than those on campus thanks to insufficient hostel accommodation.
At the University’s main campus, six hostels are owned by the school management while the rest are owned by individuals. Of the six hostels, five are occupied by female students. Only one is meant for the males.
The only exception is the College of Medicine, which has all its hostels owned and controlled by the university management for students studying Medicine, Physiology and Anatomy. Most of them stay on campus.
For non-medical students, especially the males, living on campus is not a tea party.
Ali Adediran, a Law student, complained about the condition of the male hostel.
He said: “Although the Student Affairs unit is trying its best to put the only male hostel in the best condition but the situation of things keep aggravating. For instance, the hygiene of the hostel environment and convenience is nothing to write home about.
“Most times, the convenience will be left untidy, with mole of faeces occupying everywhere. The issue of water supply also surfaces sometimes when the water taps dry off. However, I wouldn’t fail to recognise the effort of the management to fix issues on time.”
But female students fare better. Ololade Omobola of the Faculty of Physical Science, gave a pass mark to the University Management for putting in place necessary measures to cater for the affairs of the female students.
However, she lamented that issues are not addressed on time.
“For instance, Block B of the Lagos Hostel has light problems. That has been the situation for the past few days. In addition, there is occasional case of laptop theft and general mismanagement of hostel property,” she said.
Maryam Adesina, a Law student, resides in one of the private hostels on campus. She gave a good account of its management. She, however, raised issues about the high cost to students.
UNIBEN
By Ezekiel Efeobhokhan
But for the population burden, many students say the hostels at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) are in a fair state.
The hostels were initially designed to accommodate eight students in a room but illegal occupants, popularly known as squatters, could double the number.
The toilet facilities, windows and doors were recently renovated by a former Students Union president, Raymond Omorogbe. However, work has stopped since his tenure ended but the students are still expecting the continuation of his good work
“The hostel condition in Hall 4, though not perfect, is better than when I first got admission,” said Mathew Osagbovo, a final year Agricultural Science student. “But this vice chancellor has done lots of renovation in the hostels and this has brought the hostel to its present manageable state.”
When asked to rate the state of the hostels, another final year student, Peter Irabor, of Geology, scored it 40 per cent. He said the hostels are over populated because the management refused to build new hostels.
Others, however, blamed the management for lack of maintenance culture.
“We pay more than N8,000 every session as maintenance fee, where does the money go to. Yet, we have overgrown grasses, dirty water and some lockers don’t even have doors,” said a female student who simply gave her name as Keffi.
The only hostel with a perfect condition is the newly built NDDC hostel, allocated only to Medical, pharmacy and nursing students. CAMPUS LIFE learnt that renovation was ongoing in the existing clinical hostel.
Public Relations Officer of the university, Mr. Michael Osasuyi, said with two female hostels under construction, the problem of congestion would soon be a thing of the past.
On hygiene, he said the students have a large part to play in sustaining the recently-renovated hostels.
“The hostel may be dirty and unusable but that may be due to congestion which will soon be a thing of the past. But the students should be able to learn how to maintain the school’s property as this can go a long way for the sustenance of hostel facilities,” he said.
FEDPOFFA
By Jennifer Umeh
The hostels of the Federal Polytechnic Offa (FEDPOFFA), in Kwara State are relatively new, given that it is not too long since the institution moved to its permanent site.
However, the students are yearning for cleaner surroundings and regular electricity supply.
‘’We do not have regular electricity in our hostel apart from the electricity supply, the institution complements it with five hours of electricity supply through its main generator. Water is also pumped during this period,” said a student who does not want to be named.
