By: Abdullateef Soyomi

Nigeria’s premier university, the University of Ibadan, has a reputation for academic excellence. Despite this noble recognition, the university has not succeeded in addressing issues related to public accommodation. The state of its halls of residence is deplorable and marked by institutional negligence. Despite high-cost and systemic payment of fines by students yearly, the state of these facilities remain deeply appalling and in urgent need of intervention.

Faulty electrical sockets, broken louvers, unusable bathrooms, hell-looking toilets, and crumbling rooms have its toll of impact on student health and academic success.

In my opinion, the conditions in the public hostels are an aberration of what is expected of a prestigious institution like ours. Students face several insufficiently addressed accommodation-related issues that hamper their academic performance and affect their mental and physical well-being. The electrical sockets in some hostel rooms are either faulty or entirely non-functional, posing significant electrical hazards. For some student residents, the experience involves sharing a single wall socket in a four-man room, leading to overloading and consequent damage to appliances.

In addition, broken or missing louvers in some hostels disallow control over ventilation, making rooms sometimes quite uncomfortable. The state of the hostels’ restrooms has deteriorated significantly, with poor plumbing systems exposing student residents to infections. Some rooms are overcrowded, with peeling paint, cracked walls, and poor lighting.

Despite students being required to pay fines for repairable facilities, concerns remain about the deplorable condition of these hostels, as fines are unaccounted for and are not used to address faulty amenities. It leaves one to almost believe that hostel fees are to an extent, squarely diverted to cover other institutional costs, including administrative expenses, rather than being allotted appropriately to hostel maintenance.

It is high-time the problem is fixed. I believe that a dedicated hostel maintenance fund should be established, with hall fees utilized solely for the repair and upkeep of hostel facilities. Moreover, UI lacks a proactive maintenance culture. Rather than conducting regular inspections and repairs, hostel facilities are left to deteriorate, often reaching a state beyond simple repair. For example, a leaking pipe in a bathroom may go unattended for months, leading to flooding and further damage. Consequently, minor issues escalate into major problems that would later require significant investment to fix. It is also too obvious that the University of Ibadan despite its pride has not been successful with employing adequate numbers of technical staff to attend to mechanical concerns across the halls. We need administrative repentance.

Worth considering is the need for the University to invest in preventive maintenance. The University of Ibadan must consider a reduction of the long-term costs of major repairs and ensure that facilities remain functional. As Nigeria’s premier university, the institution should be a place where students succeed and learn to, not merely adapt, moreso to a condition that reduces their humanity. The general dilapidated infrastructure, filthy restrooms, and rampant bedbug infestations, which have turned our hostels into breeding grounds for health hazards, are nothing to be proud of. These issues are the bad images the University Senate should be bothered about.

The security architecture in our public hostels is also ineffective. Student residents, time and again, have been victims of theft, losing personal property, including gadgets and clothing. Despite the installation of CCTV cameras in the university’s halls of residence, the issue of insecurity in public hostels has not been fully addressed. The University security team, codenamed Abefele, can claim to be doing its best.

I am of the opinion that the university must leverage its vast alumni network to arrest the chronic underfunding and decay of student hostels. The university management, including student representatives, must prioritize intervening in issues related to residential accommodation. Come to think of it, it is a mandate they are obliged to fulfill as custodians of students’ interests. The grandest of it all, we all must go back to the base. The University of Ibadan is a public school. We have a duty to demand that the Federal Government chooses being responsible as a policy behavior. We need more public hostels, in architectural tune to our age.