₦airaland Forum

A CRY FOR HELP!

E go better is a popular Nigerian parlance which has undoubtedly kept us going with the hope for a better tomorrow, a tomorrow we are not now sure of when it will come, a tomorrow that may never come.
It is very true that I may not have had the best, but every other day sinks into a new depressing low, a new low that stinks but yet veiled by grand and misguided optimism whilst the underneath rots away.
I may not have seen, but I have heard of a glorious past, a past I now want to behold with an unquenchable thirst, a Past that I pray you all help to be part of my future, our future.

This post is made with regard to the pain I feel each time I encounter a student of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, My Noble(is it still?) Alma Mater, and this is on a daily basis.
I have put aside writing this for too long, sometimes in want of a more artistic way to put it up and other times questioning the need to even do so as those it directly affects have come to see their predicaments as the norm. Mba! I can’t keep up with it.
The University of Nigeria Nsukka has, in my maybe inconsequential opinion, been reduced to a business centre, unfortunately the market is not made favourable for the other party, the students, are forced to partake in an unbalanced and exploitative trade.
I have hoped that the emergence of the First Home Grown Vice Chancellor predicts a good fortune for the students, but perchance he has not been made aware of the wrath going on in there yet. Hence the need for this Cry for help.
I can not tell of any category of interactions the students undergo where they do not have to be exploited. This bothers me because I wonder how I would have coped in their place.

I remember, Writing UME now UTME or JAMB like we have always known in my time, all that is required of you is to be admitted, and the JAMB sends you your admission Letter to your school at no extra cost whatsoever to the student. These days, JAMB Mandates you to pay an additional fee to access your Admission Letter and an extra one to “correct data” if the course you were offered is not the same as the one you applied for, No that’s not right!
But Alas, we should thank JAMB for being gracious enough to offer them the opportunity to be educated, ok o. (Remember say our President talk say Job no dey even after the kain education).
Then comes the institutionalized exploitation in the name of Acceptance Fee and inexplicable increasing cost of tuition fee without the commensurate increase in the quality of impacted knowledge or infrastructure. (Well this is receipted, so make we overlook am)

What excuse can possibly justify the insistence of faculty officers that newly admitted students MUST purchase new result checking cards from them not minding if they already purchased same while insisting they return them untampered, only for them to recycle the same cards and resell them to other students? We must all, as humans try not to prey on others perceived to be weaker than we are.

Then comes the GS Handbooks that are never handy they are forced to pay for.
Almost all the courses being offered now have hurriedly prepared Textbooks and accompanying ‘Manual and work books’ being bandied as Continuous assessments which the students must also buy. (where dem expect them to dey see money sef?)
Abi na final year supervisors?
I must first commend all those supervisors who embrace their supervisees as their own children and guide them through the task, some of you even go steps further in providing succor and necessary assistance outside your core mandates and I hear of them too and marvel at your show of human kindness, you understand you have been placed higher and others under you for a purpose and your coast shall never shrink. But as for you who task students to fuel your generator to be able to read their work, pay your transport so you can come to school to supervise them, tell them a certain amount of money they must pay while submitting each chapter of their work, May Thunder fire you in Jesus Name.
How about a faculty asking students intending swap to study their dream course to buy laptops costing as much as N 250,000 (Two hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) in this Buhari regime, not for the student use but for the faculty after paying through their nose for the equally high and unnecessary official fee for change of course?
I can go on and on recounting the many depressing tales of financial explotation of students but I will stop so far.
Worst is that the so called students’ leaders who are supposed to speak out for them in the face of these exploitations choose to turn blind eyes to these anomalies while wearing well tailored clothes, appearing smart and focusing instead on areas where they too can make money or embezzle same. No be so e suppose be na
Sometimes I wonder if institutions in Nigeria are built to frustrate the people it was meant to serve.

I am speaking up because it has truly been bad and I sincerely do not want to tell the future generation of how much better it was in my time, I want it to get better because this is My Alma Mater and these students are my younger ones and their parents are mine who have had to waddle through economic uncertainties to provide for the family.
I call upon all who can, to lend a voice to see to the end of all these ‘clandestine hooliganism’ and to all concerned to please have a change of heart, I know we are all trying to bring food to the table, but try to dey fear God