An article was published in the Vanguard newspaper dated 27th December 2014 regarding the state of University Nigeria Nsukka. The article which made a comparison between the University of Ghana and the University of Nigera, Nsukka revealed some shocking differences.
While the former was relatively a conducive learning environment with the necessary amenities that an institution of such standard should have, the latter being the University of Nigeria Nsukka was a direct opposite.
According to the article, multitude of Uncompleted projects littered everywhere, grasses had Turned to bushes and hedges were untrammeled, free and wild. Many buildings were pale, washed and battered. Hostels were in shambles .
The Enugu campus that houses faculties of Law and Medicine has no pipe borne water. The state of the toilet facilities in Enugu campus can only be imagined.
A chat with some female students of that campus revealed that students have buckets for defecating.
They defecate in the open, along the toilet corridor, many at a time, facing themselves, into buckets and hurl the contents afterward into the toilet Bowls, leaving trails of feces for the cleaners who come when they wish to effect as much cleaning as they can.
The buckets are subsequently rinsed with scarce water ,which they have to buy , and kept in the rooms until when again needed. Those who cannot stand the bucket idea defecate into polythene bags and fling them onto a heap behind the hostels.
That heap has survived generations . Its pathetic.
An Alumni exists but the atrocity has persisted.
The Vice chancellors residence is state of the art,
new. The vice chancellor has managed to ensconce himself in five star comfort while students are dehumanized . Don't ask me who is being groomed there. Perhaps pit toilets , since they cannot have water, may actually restore some dignity.
Its that bad. Students learning early how to be wild. The school’s internet network system functions so abysmally slowly that I could not use it . Lecturers and students can hardly do meaningful online researches in that remote location. A senior lecturer told me she sends articles to foreign journals using her blackberry phone. That is the story of Nigeria .
And ironically the school’s motto reads: To restore the dignity of man. Ghanas 2015 budget is 50 percent donor funded, Nigeria is rich and lives on her own money. Legon is to a great extent insulated from political and local administrative changes because Legon has a tradition.
A tradition that all must follow. That entrenched
tradition is the institution. So while projects in
Legon are completed before others are started,
and buildings are repainted yearly, Nsukka is a
picture of haphazardness and planlessness.
An environment of order and good tradition will
culture , nurture and instill order and virtue in
young minds but if you sow disorder , you will
reap disorder.
Often Nigerian academics sneer at the politicians
claiming they are superficial, flimsy, selfish,
shortsighted and wasteful. But Nsukka indicts Our
academics.
And Its not just about funding. And Nsukka is not alone ,other public universities are perhaps worse. Nsukka is a reflection of our society .University of Ghana indicts all of us. And we shamelessly now troop there in droves in search of better tertiary education for our children.
