It has been eight months since the unfortunate fire incident at the Naraguta Campus library and ever since the fire, most of the students and staff of the faculties of social sciences and management sciences have been displaced because the building also hosted departments like economics, political science, psychology, accounting, business management and others.
Due to the fire, decades of records dating back till the 1970s were lost and also, all departmental offices and lecture halls were consumed thereby leaving lecturers with no offices and students with no lecture halls.
After investigations, UniJos Echo discovered that some of the departments are ‘squatting’ in various locations. The psychology departmental offices are now located beside the Naraguta Campus social center with their lecture venues scattered all over the school. Some of the sociology, economics and political science departmental offices are now located at the school for post-graduate studies, Naraguta Campus with their lecture venues held mostly at the Village Hostel cafeteria and the Demonstration Secondary School Hall.
Joseph Mankilik, a student of the political science department expressed his grievances saying “sometimes two lectures will hold at the same venue and time so the noise is always distracting, not to mention the fact that we walk a very long distance to attend a lecture”. Christopher Chung a student of psychology department also said that sometimes they have to stand for the duration of the lecture coupled with the fact that they share a hall with an Indomie Noodles restaurant in the Zion female hostel. He also added that every Friday, they have GST at the ASUU secretariat and then a core course immediately after at Zion Hostel, “that is a 25 to 30 minutes walk, covering a distance of about 2 km” he lamented.
Another statement of accounts given by an economics student pointed out that they receive lectures at Abuja hostel common room.
It was also discovered that due to the lack of lecture halls, more evening and weekend classes have now been scheduled for many of the faculties at the Naraguta Campus. As a result of these evening and weekend classes, some students of the Faculty of Arts complain of the stress of being in school sometimes from 8 AM till 6 PM.
However, these conditions are temporary as the school management in collaboration with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) has shown interest in the predicament of students and staff alike. Only recently, the VC of the University, Professor Sebastian Maimako, revealed that the Federal Government has awarded a contract sum of about N729 million to the university through TETfund for the renovation of the burnt library at the Naraguta Campus.
The VC said this during his one year in office briefing to journalist and revealed that N1 million worth of books were donated to the University by the VC and management of the Federal University of Technology Minna (FUT Minna).
UniJos Echo has observed that construction work has now resumed at the new administration building, the Faculty of Arts Phase 2 building and the faculty of social science among other buildings on campus all in a bid to reduce the hardship students face with the limited lecture halls.
Photo Credit: Team Juliet
