Students Battle Terrible Living Conditions In Nigerian Tertiary Institutions 

Just a week after Sa’ad Mohammed* resumed school at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, in Kaduna, North West Nigeria, for the first time, what started as a search for his stolen bucket landed him in a hospital with a broken leg. 

But his injury and subsequent recovery didn’t end the water scarcity. Even now, the 16-year-old law student still struggles to get water for daily activities. Sometimes, he has to take an almost thirty-minute walk from his hostel to a lecture theatre opposite the main gate of the campus to fetch water.

“People generally fetch water late at night to avoid the sun, but sometimes, you may need water during the daytime,”  he explained. 

It was during one struggle for water that he got shoved around after a fight broke out among other students in the queue who were just as desperate to fill their buckets. They had all been without water for a while. He fell into the edge of a gutter, cracking the bone on his left leg.

Water tankers are the primary source of water supply for the students. When they don’t show up, he finds water in the school chapel, which is also a bit of a walk from his hostel. “The chapel brings water biweekly, and the water source is reliable since it comes through a pump.” 

The primary water source in the boy’s hostel used to be the well, but recently, the water has gotten contaminated. It first changed to green and sometimes gave off a blackish colour and an off-putting smell, but that doesn’t deter the students from using it as it is the only available option sometimes. 

“I think the water got mixed up with our suck-away system. I got typhoid and food poisoning last semester from using the water for cooking, and I am currently having fungal reactions all over my body; I started treating it last week,” Sa’ad says.

The school-funded water tankers barely came this semester, and many students still depend on the contaminated well despite the cholera outbreak.  Last semester, the water tankers used to come in once a day, and due to the scarcity this causes, fights are unavoidable at the tap, and many students get their buckets stolen. 

Earlier this year, a cholera outbreak was declared by health professionals in Lagos state, and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention recorded about 53 deaths and 1,528 cases of cholera across 31 states. 

When Sa’ad went to the school clinic to treat typhoid and food poisoning two days into the first semester, he was left unattended. “I went there by 9 a.m. and met four people in the queue. I waited till around 4 p.m. before I got tired and left, even though it was supposed to be an emergency. I had to go to a clinic outside campus.” 

Sa’ad started buying sachet water for cooking, especially when he doesn’t get water from the chapel or the tank, which affected his finances. “I buy at least six bags of sachet water every week, which amounts to ₦1,750, which is just not sustainable for me.” 

The girls’ hostel on the same campus sees a slightly different reality, Yusra Ahmad*, an ABU 500-level law student, explains. “The boys’ hostel usually gets it worse than we do, maybe because they assume women have more things to wash. The first year was the most inconvenient. Sometimes, we don’t get water to bathe before going to class in the morning. Sometimes, I will go and beg my friends when it is necessary.” 

Since her admission in 2018, the living conditions have been terrible. Adjusting to the situation over the years had been very challenging, and she and her roommates decided to hire one of the porters to help them get water because they always seemed to get it somehow. Hiring porters, however, affects her finances. 

“I am currently broke, but I have to pay them the ₦3500 (for three 20-litre water buckets per day) we agreed on. If I weren’t paying them, the money would have been used to buy more foodstuff.” 

Things, however, change for the worse when the porters go on strike, which has happened twice since Yusra got admitted six years ago. One time, when she was travelling home, she went through the hostel looking for water, but not even her friends could spare a drop. 

The hygiene also gets bad when the porters and cleaners strike. “We had to clean our toilets, and it was very bad. At one point, I had to run away to the campus in Samaru. The hostel was smelling, and even the school surroundings were in bad condition. 

“There is currently a scarcity; they are [referring to the school-funded water tankers] not bringing water, and we mostly manage well water, and sometimes they pump water. I have very sensitive skin, and I am currently struggling with my skin; I already have eczema occasionally, but this issue is also exacerbating it.”

The water scarcity has led to students calling in water vendors, locally known as Mai Ruwa, from outside the school because there was no water anywhere inside the school. This costs ₦70 per jerry can, and she usually needs two jerry cans daily because that is what she can afford. Taking the jerry cans into the hostel also adds more stress to the students because the water vendors can only stay at the hostel gate. 

The lack of electricity is also something that really affects Yusra’s finances. “I used to charge my phone for ₦50 before, but now it has increased to ₦100, and I have things like my torch, laptop, and power bank to charge. I spend up to ₦500 to charge my things per day.” 

The last time the electricity went out, it remained so for a month. Students had to find alternative ways of charging their gadgets, including visiting friends and using the mosque.

Ahmadu Bello University, ranked 6th in Nigeria but 2228 out of 14,131 in the world, has an annual budget grant of ₦150 million and still struggles to pay its ₦3.6 million electricity bills. A report by Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper, shows that 40 professors signed a petition in July to President Bola Tinubu to handle this issue.  

“We kept going to the accommodation office to complain, but they kept saying they needed this and that amount, and it dragged on till we finally spoke to someone in the Student Representative Council (SRC),” Yusra said. 

A Toxic Environment 

Regina Peters*, a fresh student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), in southeastern Nigeria, lived as a boarding student during her secondary school years. However, the experience didn’t prepare her for the living conditions at the Eyo-Ita hostel at UNN. 

“Thieves climb the window sills to slit the nets and steal things. The doors are also usually always closed because of the rats, making the room hot with the fan being the only source of ventilation,” she said.

To make matters worse, the hostel does not allow hot plates and gas cookers, and due to the lack of a kitchen, students have to cook in their rooms with kerosene stoves despite poor ventilation. “I was sick throughout my first year. I constantly had fever, headaches and blocked nose as a result of all the kerosene smoke I inhaled,” she said.  

During the February to October 2022 strike action, Regina underwent treatment for typhoid a month after returning home. 

When she told her family that the hostel was the sole reason for her sickness, they told her to manage the situation. Soon after resumption, she fell sick again, even though it wasn’t as bad as before. This pushed her to work and save up enough money to rent a place outside school, and by the end of the first year, she moved out, improving her health. 

According to the latest World Health Organization data, improving hygiene, sanitation, and access to safe drinking water could prevent around 1.4 million yearly deaths. Diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections are the leading causes of these preventable deaths. 

At the Rivers State College of Health Science and Management Technology (RIVCOHSMAT), Tara Ebuka’s* experience living in the school’s hostel is not one she looks back on fondly. The 21-year-old started studying community health at the school in January. 

“The hallway entrance is no different from a refuse dump. When we pass it, sometimes we have to run because the smell is so bad that we have to start making videos about it online,” she says.  

When a pipe burst and the contaminated water spread into the halls, the school authorities took about two weeks to fix it. The pipes were left open for another week before finally closing in April.  

“I contracted an infection because I had to cross that water every day. I got diagnosed with Urticaria, and I spent over ₦10,000 to get it treated,” Tara recalls. The infection caused her pain, itching, and discomfort. 

In May, she moved out of the hostels to an off-campus residency with the help of an all-female online group chat that raised about six per cent of her ₦180,000 rent.

Like ABU Zaria, RIVCOHSMAT also struggles with light bills, affecting the campus water supply. Things are much easier now that she is staying off-campus. 

The most challenging thing for Pelayo Abiodun* at the University of Lagos in South West Nigeria is the state of the bathrooms and toilets in the school. Even though there are cleaners that come in, they can be very challenging to use. “The toilets also need to be demolished and rebuilt. There was a time a part of it collapsed, and it was left that way for almost two months,” Pelayo said. 

Even though the school has enough water when the electricity is stable, the water quality poses a challenge for the students. Pelayo can see how dirty some of the tanks are from his room, as they don’t have covers. The students sometimes have to wait until the dirt in the water settles before they can use it. 

“This is also what about 80 per cent of us are using to cook, and not everyone can buy sachet water. Some people also complain that water causes skin issues. Once, I got a throat infection after brushing with the water, and ever since, I have only used sachet water to brush,” he said. 

The bedbug infestation is also a huge challenge for the students. Despite previous fumigation, the problem doesn’t seem to be getting solved. The bedbug sometimes affects his sleep. “Sometimes, I will try to kill them or just go outside and start pressing my phone because I can’t sleep once I start to feel them.” 

Bedbugs also sometimes cling to students’ clothes, which can be inconvenient. 

“We keep complaining about it, but nothing is really being done about it. The windows in the room are usually always faulty, and when rain falls, the rainwater usually gets into the rooms.” 

The 18-year-old civil engineering student is also concerned about the lack of price control in the school, and sometimes, with few options, the students have no choice but to buy their necessities at ridiculous prices. 

“The hostel clothes line is also not enough for us to hang our laundry; we usually use hangers so we can get enough space. Sometimes, even when you spread your clothes on the line, someone else can come and spread theirs on top of yours. And when we hang them in the corridors, the porters can throw them down as it is against the rules.”  There are about 16 clothes lines in his hostel, and they are short in length.