Leadnaija
It’s been a week since University of Ibadan students living in Alexander Brown Hall (ABH) and Falase Hall trooped out to protest an 80-day blackout in University College Hospital (UCH), yet the problem persists. Students complain that alternative provisions the ABH management put in place are insufficient.
On Thursday, John, a medical student, said that although the protest had not resumed, the ABH management was putting measures in place to provide alternative power sources.
“They’re installing solar pumps and a charging station in the hall’s TV Room. The latter didn’t go down well with students,” John said.
FIJ gathered that students were not fully in support of these alternatives.
The charging station in ABH
“The hall management on Wednesday started installing a solar charging hub in the hall, but the feasibility of that hub is not really good. From what I heard, it’s just about 100 charging spots for a hostel of over 600 people, and even for 100 people. I doubt it would be able to sustain charging of heavy devices like laptops for too long,” another medical living in ABH who did not want to be named told FIJ on Friday.
These alternative power sources were yet to start functioning.
“It’s still under construction. Modalities haven’t been put in place yet but it was earlier proposed that it’ll be one device per person, for one hour.
We rejected that and the hall EXCO proposed to come up with a better solution,” Richard Owolewa (pseudonym), another medical student, told FIJ on Friday.
Another student said they still had to go as far as the main campus to power their devices.
“The charging hub isn’t functional yet, so it’s still terrible. We have to go as far as UI to see electricity to charge and then come back and queue for hours for water. This is sub-human living,” he said.
He also explained that the hall management had earlier got a diesel generator set to reduce the distress of the blackout, but lack of funds made its operation short-lived.
“Last year we had provision of diesel generator to power the whole hall for three hours daily and promises from the school to continue providing diesel for running the generator till there’s reconnection of power, but we only used the diesel generator for about 14 days then we were told that there were no more funds to keep providing diesel,” the student said.
“So since last year, mid-December, we haven’t had any power in the hall at all, just the petrol generator to pump water.”
The students momentarily halted a peaceful demonstration on January 22 after a staff member at the Ibadan Federal Housing promised to intervene. He assured the students that electricity would be restored on Friday, January 24. The students then promised to resume their demonstration if power was not restored.
In an earlier report, FIJ showed how the electricity burden of UCH rested on both the management of the hospital and the University of Ibadan management.Tap Here for the Full Story
