CRISIS BREW AT UNILORIN HOSTEL OVER POOR SANITARY CONDITIONS

All does not seem to be well with UNILORIN students residing at the Female Lagos Hotel of the school. This is allegedly due to nonpayment of salaries to the cleaners employed by the school to sanitize the hostel.

UCJ UNILORIN gathered that the cleaners had since stopped work due to the development, a situation that has lead to unhealthy sanitary conditions at the various school-owned hostels on campus.

Due to the foregoing, the Hall Representative of the Lagos Hostel (Female), Senator Mutiat, was said to have rallied students staying at the hostel for an attempt at salvaging the situation pending the time the University management will resolve the issue with the cleaners.

According to sources at the hostel, the students were to organize themselves and collect the refuse at various rooms so as to dump them at the hostel's dump site situated at block D.

Trouble started on the D-day, on Thursday, however, when some members of the hostel allegedly dodged the exercise; a situation that led to fracas that came to a head on Thursday 11th May, at the hostel.

One of the occupants of D14, was said to have gone round to call on other members of her block for the exercise but occupants of D12 did not respond. So, she and the others went ahead with the exercise.

However, after the other students were done with the cleaning, an occupant of D12 was said to have emerged from the room for an unspecified task after which she returned inside. This surprised the other lady who had gone to knock on the aforementioned room earlier. Nevertheless, when she went to knock there again, nobody allegedly answered. Infuriated, she was said to have left the refuse bin at the front of Room D12.

UCJ UNILORIN also gathered that when the other members returned to meet the refuse bin at the front of their room, they returned it to usual spot where it has always been, allegedly. An occupant of Room D14 was said to have returned the bin to D12, whose occupants also did a reversal of the bin to D14. An eyewitness told UCJ UNILORIN that the same sequence of events occurred three times which led to exchange of insults between occupants of the two rooms.

This climaxed to an occupant of D14 throwing the refuse contained in the bin into Room D12.

When our correspondent sought the account of one of the occupants of D12, simply identified as Doyin, she said, "On Thursday, 11th of this month, the Hall Rep came to our room. She came to our room to tell us that we should all participate in the cleaning of the hostel since all the cleaners are on strike due to fact that...due to the fact that MBO did not paid (sic) their fees; their salaries."

She added when they (she and her bunk mate) went out for the chore, nobody was outside for the cleaning, which made them left for their other activities. When they returned, she said that they decided to watch movies and had to put on earphones. She denied the allegation that they ignored the knocks on their door, saying that she was oblivious of them.

"So, when opened our door to go and join them, what we saw was a piled, full disgusting waste bin staring at us in front of our door. So, we decided to put it back at the actual place 'cos it is not a mandatory work for us," she claimed.

According to her, when they returned the bin to its "actual place", an occupant of Room D14 returned it to their doorstep, culminating into back and forth movement of the bin between their room and Room D14.

She added that a lady from D14 who goes by the name Mariam, later barged into their room to abuse them. "To avoid violence," she said that they decided to "show her the door," only for the lady to come and throw the waste bin into their room.

She concluded that they had since packed the refuse after they took photographs of it, and have decided to "use the law accordingly to avoid violence, to avoid anything."

Mariam, Occupant of D14, Responds

UCJ UNILORIN gathered from Miss Mariam, the accused person, who explained that the members of D11 to D14 agreed to dispose off the bin but D12 refused to cooperate.

According to her, they reminded the other room members earlier of the sanitation exercise. Thus, they went to D12 to call on them to clean, no one answered. Then, someone came out of the room after she has left. She went towards the room to peep, and saw two girls in the room but, no one answered when she knocked.

As a result, they left the refuse bin for them at their door step after disposing the rest. When occupants of D12 came out, they returned it to Room D14 but the room members retaliated.

Consequently, she went to address them in their room concerning the situation but was treated with hostility and was pushed out of their room where she hit her hand against the door.

Angrily, she picked the refuse bin and threw it into the room from the entrance where she stood. The refuse bin was returned to the front door of Room D14 three times. 

At the end of her account, occupants of Room D14 appealed to the Student Affairs Unit to do something urgent in bringing back the services of clerical staff.

In their words, "Help us to tell the Student Affairs to pay the cleaners' money."

Account of an Occupant of Room D12

"Actually, I went out by 5pm, I got back around 7, I met refuse there...I saw refuse in front of our door and I asked that why is refuse there? When they were bringing it (dirt), we returned it back...She was just abusing us. I think she now went back, they brought the refuse back again. So, we were returning it back, that's why she now came and threw it inside the room."

When asked if the lady from D14 was pushed, an occupant of D12 replied, saying she wasn't pushed intentionally.

"If they pushed her, maybe they were closing the door... she wanted to hit someone with the refuse bin...", she said.

Account of another Eyewitnesses

This eyewitness claimed to be a passer-by. When asked if the D14 lady was pushed, she said it wasn't true because she witnessed the scenario and narrated all to the UCJ, UNILORIN.

In her words, "That girl is a liar, confirm liar... that girl in D14, she just went to carry the dirt and she came to pour it inside D12, inside the room..." There were maggots on the floor and ants..." "it was stinking, it was smelling, like it was smelling that nobody could pray on that place yesterday again..."

She further explained that there was no reason for her to be pushed because of the environment they are in.

"It's a lie, they couldn't even go near her because we all know what Unilorin is like, because if you touch someone, ordinary touching sef, we know the consequence..."

"They didn't even go close to her... they were only shouting at one another, nobody pushed at all."

Osuji Chima Francis
&
Bello Hussein Adoto
UCJ, UNILORIN.

Credit to;

Esegine Ruth for the interviews 

Jemimah and Oreoluwa for the transcription.