The disturbing practice of Hostels Bedspace Racketeering at ABU Zaria
By Muhammad Maihaja
Let’s talk about the disturbing practice of Hostels Bedspace Racketeering at ABU Zaria! After I saw the recent hike in the ABU student school fees, I thought to myself this isn’t what students should worry about at the moment. Well, there is more explanation to the increment considering some departments didn’t examine students stating reasons like they don’t have cardboard and all. This is a topic for another day.
I envisaged a yearly problem is looming again as almost all students participate in this nefarious activity.
If paying fees is a problem, what I know for sure as a student is that getting accommodation is much more of a problem.
Among all the necessities for a human being, shelter is the second most important after food. There is this continuously disturbing practice among students of the university, which involves buying bed-spaces from the university at meager amounts and selling them for exorbitantly high prices to students who want to settle.
In fact, due to how widespread and economically viable this venture is, some even participate as agents and get so much profit by doing nothing. I can say the revenue (of course revenue without investment which is laughable) generated from this venture is far greater than what even the university generates.
Assuming the school sells 1000 bed spaces and each Bedspace for N7000, this would amount to N7,000,000. On the other hand, say 350 Bedspaces were sold for an average fee of N35,000, this would amount to about N12,250,000. Of course, this might not be valid but, this is what happens.
READ ALSO: Why ABU hostel bedspace is still N90 per year – Director
This is what we got ourselves into, this is what we cry about; our leaders not doing the best for us, but are we doing any better. Imagine a Bedspace of 7000 was sold for 150,000 in the previous session. What kind of evil act is this? I can’t imagine the youths we chant to govern the affairs of this country are this bad.
Why reserve a Bedspace you don’t need, just because you are in Zaria and other students are not? Why not give it out if you don’t need it? Also, why does the school makes reservations easier for the internet users?
Why not provision cloud services to make access to the portal seamless and equal for all? Or do you expect all students to be in the institution just to make reservations while they aren’t provisions for shelter when they make it there? The entire process is not planned at all. It is set out to favour a few.
When I got into the institution in 2015, an extension Bedspace in Danfodio hall will sell for about N14,000 and old-block for N25,000 or N30,000. Fast forward to 2019, the same extension will sell for N35,000 and old block for N70,000. Imagine!
Even hall admins and potters participate in this flagrantly wicked act. The one selling and the one buying are all evil. The moment you buy a Bedspace you are making it twice as hard for someone without a Bedspace.
In the previous sessions, even the institution makes this whole process much harder. They open the portal at different times. For example, in the night for 10 minutes and other funny times. Some rooms are released others are not released.
What is more painful is that a block representative and hall governor (which his election is even done in the previous session) is given a handful of Bedspaces for himself and his cronies by the dean of student affairs.
On what grounds? Is the hall representative any better than other students, or has the DSA any rights of giving out Bedspaces to chosen students? Or how will the SRC president be allocating Bedspaces on the assent of the dean?
What I know is right is that the SRC president should only be entitled to one Bedspace, and if he doesn’t reserve it on the portal himself, then he loses it. What more?
Some questions for the institution:
Why are students not able to reserve accommodation immediately after paying for the school fees? Why has the portal never been stable and been free from downtimes and delivered hitch-free access since its inception?
The student affairs division’s intentions now come to inform announcements via WhatsApp statuses that reservations will be open by 7am. How is that fair? Is WhatsApp the recognized medium for information dissemination by the university? What if I don’t have a smartphone? This isn’t fair at all.
If there should be any information, it should be on the portal. And it shouldn’t be on the same say as someone can’t sit all day before a screen. There should be a release on and off the portal with at least a week interval before the reservations commence.
There has never been any session without problems with regards to payments and reservations. In fact, this is done only once in a session, what do the staff managing the portal do all year round before the commencement of the next session, drink coffee, and sleep?
I thought caffeine stops you from sleeping. I think this is sheer incompetence. Some students can even do a better job than this whack portal. Or are the staff afraid to lose their jobs?
Back to my fellow students, I suggest you should report any person found to be selling a bedspace and never buy one if it isn’t N7000. Also, document it properly with the SAD. In the previous session, I had a bedspace which I turned out not to need.
I approached the hall admin and told him about it. I wrote an undertaking that I am transferring the Bedspace and they found someone whom I never knew by any chance. Different religion, different faculty, different regions, yet I gave it out.
No Bedspace selling whatsoever the case may be. I suggest the school should set up undercover agents to rat out all the bad eggs involved in this nefarious act. Students too can do just that. Initiate a transaction, obtain the details of the seller and then submit to the university for proper actions(which I believe is rustication).
Muhammad is a concerned ABU student.
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