FUT Minna Students seek govt’s intervention over rising cost of accommodation

Students at the federal university of technology Minna are worried about the growing cost of getting a decent accommodation outside their campus.

They accuse landlords and real estate agents of exploiting the students due to the lack of sufficient hostel accommodation on campus.

In this special report our correspondent Chenemi Bamaiyi visited the school to find out.

Cost of housing varies from city to city and from neighborhood to neighborhood . Sometimes the quality of materials used in building a house also contributes to the price the landlord puts on it.

At the federal university of technology Minna, there is a huge deficit in accommodation, there are insufficient hostels to accommodate the students.

And decent accommodation is a vital component of learning for students.

The university management is not unaware of this challenge.

Out of more than 26,000 students, the school hostel can only accommodate less than 5,000 students.

Leaving a question begging for an answer, Where are the other 19,000 students.

Directly opposite the federal university of technology Minna is the host community called Gidan kwano.

The neighborhood is a rural community that lacks some basic infrastructure and social amenities except for the Federal University of Technology that moved it’s permanent site here .

Initially, students here lived in mud houses before developers found the huge investment opportunities in providing housing for students.

I drove round the neighborhood in a tricycle moving from one lodge to another comparing prices, I saw that the quality of building or available facility in some houses is not commensurate with the rent.

Most of the rooms here are single rooms self contain.

For example, one of the rooms cost 240,000 naira and another is so poorly designed that the shower is positioned directly on the toilet seat.

The occupant of the house clearly has no where to stand when taking a bath.

No building regulations.

Just close to this apartment is another one where a room and parlour with a kitchen, toilet and bathroom cost a whopping 750,000 naira and a single room goes for 450,000 naira.

Yet, students are paying for it.

Outside this area, many people do not pay this much to rent a house.

Nothing special here, the house is not furnished, no alternative source of power or generator only a constant water supply and gateman.

At this apartment with over 50 rooms the fee is 275,000 for a single room self contain, although expensive some students that live here find a way of augmenting this money by either pairing with another student or engaging in small businesses.

Olamilakan Yusuf is an engineering student that uses machine learning to create computer assisted devices.

That’s a 71% percent increase in just 2 years

Yakub’s story resonates among many students who pay a huge fee to rent a room off campus at the federal university of technology in Minna , for many others, they cannot even find an affordable accommodation close to school.

The other apartments for students who cannot afford these are in bad conditions without water, and security fence.
A room cost between 70 to 80 thousand naira.

This particular house has just one toilet and bathroom for all the tenants, and it is located behind the house.

And the toilet and bathroom in this one faces the main road.

On campus the students Union government is unhappy with the attitude of landlords which they consider to be exploitative and they want the school authority to intervene.

Accommodation on campus is a lot cheaper with better facilities including security, and proximity to lecture rooms.

A bed space in the old hostel cost 40,000 naira while the new hostel with internet, air conditioning system cost between 135,000 for a room of four and 150,000 naira for room of two.

Yet they are not enough.

This is partly because towards the end of last 2023 the school moved all the students from the old campus in Bosso which has served as the main campus for over 30 years to the new campus which was opened a few years ago.

I met with Dr Bashiru Ganiyu who is the dean of students affairs , he is in charge of students accomodation.
he says the solution to the accomodation crisis is to have more private individuals invest in building hostels inside the school.

TVC News was unable to get any landlord to speak or agent to talk about the hike in accomodation.