By: The Muffin Man
Bayo (not a real name) resumed very late. He was broke and desperate at the time when the normal rooms were being allocated, so he would not have been able to pay even if his name had come up during the allocation process. But when he resumed fully, he started reaching out to people to assist him. But when all other options seemed to have dried up, he, along with a group of boys, went to meet with the porters to get bedspace in the kitchenettes.
"We went to meet the porters, and I said, 'If you can manage the kitchenette.' Actually, they wanted to allocate four people here. So, we told them that this place is quite jagged up. It can't contain four people like that. That was when they allowed us to be three. They then asked us to pay. We paid money for this kitchenette, around #60,000. We also asked them to fix it, because this place was quite naked. It was naked, as I was here before. Therefore, they fixed all the sockets," he said.
Accommodation in UI
The first semester of a session is a rather difficult period for most occupants of Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall. For individuals who are not freshmen or finalists, the whole process of securing accommodation is not exactly a jolly one. Given that primary consideration is given to medical students, students on IT, first-year students and final-year students, the rest have to justle, hope and pray for the spaces left when the previously mentioned set of people are satisfied.
Ordinarily, individuals who are interested in getting a room in Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall have to get an accommodation form for about ₦200 from the porters. Upon resuming, they then check the released lists to see if their names appeared in the lists that are being released. Some of these students hold on to hope of securing a bedspace, shuffling between staying with friends and sleeping in reading rooms or off campus, at a period where the academic rigour was already heating up. And oftentimes, when the first, second, third or maybe even the fourth list gets released, they are stranded when they then realise that there are no more rooms available. They then scramble to get more permanent and/or convenient options, depending on their pockets.
This has been the narrative in Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall for a while now. Mojeed, another kitchenette resident, when he found that there were no vacant rooms left, when he heard there were kitchenettes available, he went to ask for it, and he was fixed up in one of the repurposed rooms. The wiring and louvres had been fixed, but he had to fix the lighting and electrics himself.
This session…
The signs started appearing last semester. But obviously, the winds of this change had started blowing a little while before then. In halls of residence like Tedder and Indy, their kitchenettes were being repurposed to serve as rooms for students. Between that time and now, Indy press has written at least three articles on the matter. But it was not until the beginning of this session that Nnamdi Azikiwe Hall saw her own changes. First it started as repair works being done in some of these rooms; before long, there were real-time signs that these rooms are no longer the officially delegated cooking areas.
The Kitchen Boys Lament
When Zik Press reached out to one of the occupants of these newly converted rooms, he revealed that he was stranded and very desperate; he just had to pay. For most of the students Zik Press interviewed, the financial, psychological, and emotional benefits of staying on campus are one of the reasons why they paid to live there. However, with the various issues these people are dealing with, staying in a kitchenette does not appear to be all worth it.
For starters, the kitchenettes in Zik hall are designed to have cabinets and cooking surfaces. But even now that these rooms have been officially reassigned as official living areas, none of the cupboards and cooking surfaces have been moved. The occupants just move around in that space everyday. Most of the kitchenettes that Zik Press visited showed signs of a desperate need for renovations.
However, some of the residents of the kitchenettes we visited expressed scepticism about our enquiries. On one occasion, the occupants of one of these rooms, seeing the questions we had, asked us, rather hastily, to leave, perhaps due to a fear of intimidation or eviction.
In the meantime, kitchenette occupants keep facing various challenges. For one thing, staying in the kitchenettes as they are currently is a big security risk. Most of these repurposed rooms had doors whose materials had weakened with time and had almost fallen off their hinges. The only thing keeping the individuals living in those rooms and their properties is the grace and protection of the Supreme Being, as it would appear that the only thing those doors can do is to cover the doorframe.
Speaking to one of the residents, Mojeed stated that they often had to deal with lights and privacy issues. He even stated that rats would oftentimes sneak in through the cracks and holes in their doors and eat their foodstuff. Bayo also concurred saying, "This place is not safe. I usually get scared in the night because someone could just break in. The latch on my door can barely hold it."
Another kitchenette occupant added that some of the hall excos don't know they are supposed to be living there. According to him, they have had to explain several times to Emiola Waliu's defence team members that the porters assigned them to move in there.
Furthermore, these rooms pose a ginormous electrical risk to the people living in and around them. As it stands, in most of the kitchenettes (both the ones that are currently being occupied and the ones that have not been fully converted) there are big electrical distribution boards called pattresses.
While some of these experts stated that having one in rooms is not so bad, having them exposed is hazardous. In fact, one of the occupants of these rooms has on occasion lamented about the issue of smoke and occasional sparks from these boxes.
A need for urgent intervention
Zik Press visited all the other kitchenettes in A-Block, B-Block and C-Block, and we found traces of failing facilities. The windows and louvres were barely hanging on. In most cases, especially in C-block, the doors were almost entirely ripped off. As it stands, only the kitchenettes that are currently being occupied, like the 4 in B-block and the 2 in A-block, have experienced some form of repair of the electrical fittings and window installations.
The other kitchenettes, especially the two remaining in A-block and the ones in C-block, lie in a state of disrepair. And these raise critical questions about habitability and safety in the baluba kingdom.
Editor's note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals concerned.
