DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF STUDENTS’ HOSTELS

 A healthy environment is important for studies, as elsewhere

While warning that continued neglect of accommodation facilities poses a serious threat to the welfare, safety and dignity of students in our universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has declared a national emergency to redress the situation. “Many hostels are in deplorable and dilapidated conditions, and they continue to deteriorate with little or no attention from the relevant authorities,” NANS president, Babatunde Akinteye, said during the inauguration of the 2026 National Executive Council last week. “Many students are forced to live in environments characterised by poor sanitation, inadequate facilities and other hazards. These conditions are not befitting of institutions of higher learning.”

In most campuses of our tertiary institutions, the toilets are not working and where they do water is not available. In many of the hostels, the rooms are overcrowded and there are no basic facilities. On one campus, according to a recent report, “the hostels are surrounded by bushes while the forecourt of the two hostels is water-logged. The paint on the buildings has faded, the walls cracked and the windows as well as sliding doors were half eaten by termites.” There have also been reports of armed robbers attacking hostels and carting away students’ belongings. 

But it is not only the hostels that are in deplorable conditions. Today, most of the structures housing the different faculties and departments in these institutions are unkempt and ill-maintained. The lecturers’ quarters in many of them are worn out due to lack of repair. While we call on the Alumni associations of these institutions and other public-spirited people in the private sector to rally for urgent assistance, the problem must be tackled holistically. The first issue is the calibre of administrators that supervise this decay. There is of course the central question of what quality of minds will emerge from these squalid environments.  

There are several reasons for this problem on our campuses, but ironically some are inflicted by the government. The growth trend in the number of federal and state universities and polytechnics is expansive instead of developmental. As a nation, we seem to like building large structures without the least care about how they will be maintained in the future. Without an active real-time maintenance department, every such institution goes into disrepair and becomes a nightmare. That is how slums and ghettoes are born. The danger of such dark places is that they tend to breed murky characters and nasty ways. But it is a sad commentary on the kind of education being offered on our campuses if they cannot maintain their own structures.

Indeed, a certain lack of creativity is a hallmark of the new breed of vice chancellors of universities and rectors of the polytechnics. They are more contractors and politicians than decent academic leaders and managers of scarce resources. One way in which these institutions can manage their maintenance and general management services would be to create student work/study programmes in which interested students get hourly paid employment to be part of these services. That way, they earn income while being a part of the upkeep of campus municipal services. This would of course be only complementary to the compulsory presence of well-equipped maintenance units.  

Perhaps in addition to all these, the rudiments of decent living and healthy environmental habits should form part of the general studies in our institutions of higher learning. That is perhaps the best way to halt the current tide of a national elite that mostly lacks environmental decency.