The hostel Isaac resides in is a three-story building, which houses about one hundred rooms. The occupant(s) of each room pay an average of 150,000 naira per annum.

In 2020, students residing in Isaac’s hostel lost no less than nine million naira altogether on rent as a result of the nine-month strike.

“The whole situation is very annoying. It is very worrisome that we don’t enjoy the rent that we pay,” Isaac told The Guardian.

A professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the university management might not be able to mediate between students and the landlords in matters of off-campus accommodation primarily because universities are never a party to the initial agreement.

According to him, any matter beyond the security of students and emergency health issues in such off-campus accommodation is beyond the current scope of the management.

“The only way that can empower the university to appeal to off-campus residential landlords for consideration of rent dormancy during strikes is to create an environment that will allow the university to become part of the initial tenancy agreement. Currently, this arrangement does not exist and there is no legal backing for such mitigation from the university.”

In the University of Ilorin, the school management and student union leaders appealed to the management of hostels off-campus to reduce the burden of renewing their rent after the resumption. This plea fell on the deaf ears of some landlords who demanded their rent in full the following year.

The Guardian learned some students are being harassed during the strike to pay their rent on expiration. One of those threatened is Marvelous Adedayo, a final year student of Sociology, with eviction. While Marvelous was away, his landlord requested his matriculation number and threatened to report him to the school authorities, if he defaulted. He renewed his rent in September that year although he was home in Ogun State with his family. This, he did to avoid eviction from his landlord.

A realtor and a caretaker of the private hostel in Tanke, Ilorin and co-founder of Ilorin property, Mr. Bakare Muktar, said there is no clause in the housing agreement with his clients who are students to default on their payment if any problem occurs, they have to pay their rents in full, with or without being present in the hostel.

“Students have no choice but to pay their rent as at when due even if ASUU is on strike or school is not in session. This does not affect the payment of rent as long as you live in that hostel or your belongings are still there,” he told The Guardian.

The burden of paying accommodation fees for students falls on the parents. With the prices of goods and services rising daily as a result of the country’s inflation rate without a corresponding increase in the wages and salaries of workers, parents are left to bear the full weight of this.

While speaking to The Guardian, Miss Olaoluwa Awode, a single mother of a fresh student of History and Diplomatic Studies, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu-Ode, lamented that the situation has been a major source of concern to her.

Her son gained admission in January 2022 and went to school from home until she paid his accommodation fees for a hostel off-campus, a sum of N100,000 in early February.

As her son was about to move into the newly rented hostel, ASUU declared a one-month warning strike. Now, Miss Olaoluwa has lost a sum of N20,000 on the rent of her son, who has not spent a day in the hostel. She is likely to lose more should the strike continue to roll over into months.

“I spoke to the caretaker for whom I paid my son’s accommodation fees to inquire if something can be done about this so as to reduce the burden of renewing the rent when my son did not spend up to 12 months in the hostel but he responded in the negative,” she said.

She further expressed her displeasure at the economic situation of the country. Her words: “There is no money or job in Nigeria and the little money we are able to earn so we can take care of our children is going to waste and it saddens me.

“Please help us, the parents of Nigerian undergraduates. It is not fair that our children spend more years in school than they ought to and we have to spend more on their accommodation than we are supposed to,” she appealed to the union and other parties involved to put an end to the strike.

Source: guardian.ng