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By Christabel Ejenike
On the 22nd of March every year, the United Nations celebrates the World Water Day. The day is usually marked by creating awareness on the global water crisis and the need to make potable water available to millions of people around the world.
But despite this annual Water Day celebrations, many Nigerian cities, especially state capitals cannot boast of potable water supply. Some of the cities that had such facilities in the past cannot use them because the water works have either been disbanded or the water reservoirs have no water in them.
This state of affairs has been replicated in many institutions of higher learning in the country. There had been cases of students embarking of strike to protest water shortages in their campuses. There was a recent case of students threatening to boycott their examinations because of non-availability of water in their hostels.
For some undergraduates, water crisis in universities has become part of their everyday life in Nigerian universities. The experience of the students is the same in spite of whether the university belongs to the older generation of universities or the relatively new universities as this challenge is part of the national infrastructural deficit.
For instance, the students of the University Of Nigeria Nsukka, UNN, which is one of the old generation of universities have the same tales of woes as far as water scarcity is concerned. A female student of the university told Realnews that there was a recent case of water scarcity in the university and that the students living in the hostels had to go in search of water, while some others resorted to buying water.
It is the same experience in Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu–Alike Ikwo, AE FUNAI, which is one of the new federal universities in the country. A female student of the school told Realnews that her experience during the most recent water scarcity in her school was not funny. .
“We went in search of water in other school blocks and most times we have to pay the indigenes to help us fetch water because of the distance and they charge us between N50 and N100 pair container,” she said.
Another female student lamented that they had to leave the hostel as early as 5:00 am to go in search of water and that the cleaners were finding it difficult to keep the hostels clean because of non-availability of water in the hostels.
Although the managements of the universities have been doing their best to address these challenges, according to the students. But like every infrastructural deficit in the country is always blamed on lack of funds, often it is poor management of available funds that is responsible for such perennial crisis in the nation’s institutions of higher learning. Apart from any other challenges, the universities should ensure that electricity and water are provided regularly to avoid protests that often disrupt learning and other activities in the universities.
– Apr. 16, 2021 @ 13:06 GMT
Tags: University students lament perennial water scarcity in hostels
