Law and The UNIBEN Hostel 'Craze'

    One of the thorniest issues, permeating the faculty right now is the question of whether or not it's the duty of the school to provide shelter/accommodation for its students! Unfortunately, this has turned out to be quite a mind bogging debacle, because on one hand we have the students whom are of the opinion that like lecture theatres and classrooms, provision of hostels for students, falls under the purview of the university, however, the school administration on the other hand has sternly insisted that the hostel accommodation is "not a right but a privilege".

It is on this template that many have had to ask - is the school trying to insinuate that those who didn't get hostel accommodation after application, are not "privileged" students? Besides is accommodation not suppose to be for the "less privileged" students instead of the "privileged"?

     That been an issue for another day, right now, we are focusing on the hardship suffered by a lot of law students! Unlike most faculties, Faculty of Law did not release sessional results on time, despite the fact that (according to the school calendar) Senate was supposed to be done with reviewing the results by 6th of November 2015. Consequently, this lack of results, has resulted in a situation were a lot of Law students are without hostel spaces. For our report (at date of this publication) shows that save for those in 100level and 500level, more than 90% of law students have been unable to secure hostel accommodation this session.

     The question being are asked is: What is supposed to be the fate of these ones without hostel spaces?

What are they supposed to do now?

For the females - "live with their "boyfriends" off campus? 

Or for the males - Live under bridges? Or in this case, live in classrooms or lecture theatres? There are confirmed rumours that some students spend the night in the lecture theatres and then go to the hostel in the morning to prepare for classes.

    

     The question is pertinent, all the more so, taking into consideration the fact that the school population has sky rocketed by more than 30% since the commencement of pre-degree programs in the school, so that even now, the price for a hostel space (according to sources) on the "black market" is now unbelievably stupendous. Our findings show that - male hostels (let's not even talk about females) that formerly went for 14 to 20 thousand naira depending on the hall of residence, has now jumped to between 18 to 25 thousand naira, talk about massive inflation!

Also the dire scarcity of accommodation in the suburbs of the school environ - junior staff quarters(JSQ), senior staff quarters (SSQ), dentistry, block of flats, etc, is also very alarming, for information reaching us says that a one room apartment in JSQ goes for 75 thousand naira now!

     The out cry is loud, a lot of students are frustrated and confused, they are haggled, they are in a race against despondency, they are tired and they don't know were to start from, and understandably so!

Here are some of the comments we got from a few of these law students

Jennifer, in 200l said she applied when there was news that their level had changed (from 100 to 200l online) on Friday, 27th Nov yet she and other applicants had not given space yet. She said. "what the school is doing is bad, they are taking money and not giving people hostels, making life hard for students. If nothing can be done they should let us know so we can weigh our options, the whole thing is stressful".
 She also profers a long term solution, "if medical students can have a hostel then why can't we? Law is also a noble profession, we should have our own so we won't have to suffer from this hardship, maybe the alumni can help out.

Nosa and Bamisaye, both in 400l come from long distances everyday and understandably, are not happy about the situation. Nosa in his words, "I spend nothing less than 500naira everyday because of this. Calculate it from when school resumed and see how much I have spent. My own view on the accommodation issue isn't much different from what others have been saying. I think if the authorities knew they won't be able to maintain the online registration they shouldn't have started same. If at this time of the semester student ain't sure of where to stay and lecturers are talking about test already I mean it is bad."
 He also added that "manual registration would have been better judging from precedence. Now I'm not trying to be ungrateful cos if the online actually worked out it would have been better off but the fact remains that it did not work out and it turned out to be the worst so far.. Its quite pathetic that accommodation is still a very big problem in UNIBEN this ought not to be so. Looking at other universities and how they actually conduct accommodation process is very impressive and I think it won't be bad if Uniben copy from them."

Daniel Odigwe also in 400l

"Although I don't stay in the hostel so I may not be able to experience the pain the way they do but I do feel their pain, I have had to accommodate those with accommodation issues and I can boldly say it is not fair and it has not been easy for them at all especially in their academics. We are students, and I must say the school authorities are here for us. What we can do right now is to cry out against this injustice against the students. Its really a stressful and painful thing and its affecting students academically, and when students begin to fail they begin to say all sorts of things. I'm appealing to the SUG to take up this matter for the students with the school authorities and come up with a solution that will be beneficial to the students".

A Female 300l student who declined her name to be mentioned, lamented the deplorable situation, "I'm temporarily in the room I stayed in last session. Now that everyone is clearing and taking possession of their allotted spaces, where will I stay when every space owner arrives? I don't know what to do, I just pray this issue is solved asap."

     When contacted, representatives of the Law Students Association (LAWSA) said the association has met with some of the officials in charge of the process and they have been promised and assured that Law students are top priorities for them. With regards to cases of leftover spaces or those that would not clear their spaces on time (within four days) for one reason or the other, such spaces would be reallocated to them.

      Law students have been implored to be patient, keep their fingers crossed and "hope for the best while praying against the worst!". Some say that its not like the worst has not passed already. Still the question is, will majority of Law students who have applied (with the fee of course), get their hostel spaces?