‘Reports such as yours could always put us on our toes,’ UNIJOS dean reacts to PREMIUM TIMES report

The Dean of Student Affairs at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Professor Chris Piwuna, has acknowledged maintenance challenges at the university’s Village Hostel, which accommodates students with disabilities, following a PREMIUM TIMES investigation into the inaccessible and deteriorating facilities.

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Mr Piwuna, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES after reading the investigation, admitted that the hostel required further improvements but said the university had made several interventions to improve conditions for students with disabilities.

“Hostel maintenance is a huge problem, and I can only say to you we will keep trying our best,” he said in a subsequent message to the reporter.

He added: “Reports such as yours could always put us on our toes.”

However, the dean did not provide a timeline for renovating the hostel or explain when the university would address the accessibility problems documented in the investigation.

In the investigation, titled “Inaccessible Hostels, Other Facilities: How UNIJOS fails Students with disabilities,” PREMIUM TIMES documented the difficulties students face accessing bathrooms, moving around the hostel compound and reaching lecture halls.

During a visit to the Village Hostel in September, the newspaper observed that the bathroom was old and poorly maintained, with no ramps, grab rails or other accessibility features to enable wheelchair users to enter and move around independently.

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The investigation also documented overgrown bushes, uneven surfaces, potholes and other barriers that make independent movement difficult for students with disabilities.

Monica Joseph*, a wheelchair user, told PREMIUM TIMES that she crawls into the bathroom on her hands and knees because there is no ramp or support device that allows her to enter with her wheelchair.

“I become even dirtier after coming out of the bathroom,” she said.

Another student, James Patrick*, who is visually impaired, recounted falling from a bridge while crossing to school because there was no guide to indicate the safe path.

Dean disputes claims of neglect

During a telephone conversation with PREMIUM TIMES after reading the report, Mr Piwuna described the suggestion that the university had abandoned students with disabilities as unfair.

He said that shortly after becoming dean, he visited the Village Hostel and identified several problems requiring attention.

According to him, some of the hostel’s doors had fallen off, while others were unsuitable for the students’ needs. He said the university replaced the doors and repaired other parts of the accommodation, including window fittings.

“When I became dean, I visited that hostel. I noticed that their doors had fallen, and I thought it was, you know, unfair to their disability, having them in bathrooms without doors. We fixed the doors. We even fixed their room doors,” he said.

He also said the university repaired a borehole near the hostel after discovering that students had to walk to other parts of the campus to fetch water because the facility was not working.

Mr Piwuna said the intervention was supported by Professor C.J. Dakas, whom he identified as someone who provided financial assistance for the repairs.

He said the university also employed two staff members in the Directorate of Student Affairs to attend to students with disabilities, including blind and deaf students and those requiring mobility assistance.

The dean further said he personally intervened to address areas around the hostel that became difficult to navigate during the rainy season.

According to him, some sections where water accumulated were worked on to provide flatter surfaces for students to move around.

He advised PREMIUM TIMES to verify the interventions with former Students’ Union Government leaders and presidents of associations representing blind and deaf students.

However, PREMIUM TIMES’ observations during the September visit showed that significant accessibility challenges remained around the hostel.

Overgrown bushes, uneven surfaces, stones and potholes still surrounded parts of the compound, making movement difficult for students with disabilities, particularly wheelchair users.

Some sections remained inaccessible, with no ramps or other features to support independent movement.

University acknowledges

While defending the university’s interventions, Mr Piwuna acknowledged that the conditions at the hostel remained unsatisfactory.

He said maintaining university facilities was a continuing challenge, particularly given the financial and administrative demands involved in managing infrastructure across a large institution.

“The issue of hostel maintenance is a big thing in any university in Nigeria, so it requires constant maintenance. That is what is lacking. Sometimes the government or the university administration is unable to do all of those things,” he said.

He also acknowledged the conditions shown in the photographs published by PREMIUM TIMES.

“From the pictures that you’ve shown, if anybody knows what it means to maintain these things, you know, when you talk to such individuals, they will tell you that it’s an ongoing thing,” he said.

The dean, however, rejected the impression that the university had neglected the welfare of students with disabilities.

“Nobody is arguing that the hostel is at the level that it should be. No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he said.

“We need to do more. I have no doubt about that. I agree with you 100 per cent, but to say or give the impression that they are being abandoned, nobody cares about their welfare and all of that, is not true. In fact, the grass around their hostel, I made sure that at any point in time, those places are properly mowed so that snakes and other reptiles would not be around.”

He said the commission sent a representative to Jos to assess the facility and obtain estimates for the proposed work, but the intervention did not materialise.

He maintained that the failure to carry out the proposed improvements did not mean the university had forgotten about the students.

Response to PREMIUM TIMES’ questions

Before publishing the investigation, PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr Piwuna, Vice-Chancellor Tanko Ishaya and the university’s spokesperson, Emmanuel Madugu, seeking explanations about the accessibility problems and the university’s plans to address them.

The newspaper sent Mr Piwuna a WhatsApp message on 12 October, detailing its observations at the Village Hostel and asking four questions about measures taken to improve accessibility, the use of students’ facility improvement and utility fees, plans for accessible hostels and other campus facilities, and timelines for addressing the concerns.

Mr Piwuna initially declined a telephone conversation and did not respond to the questions before the report was published.

After reading the investigation, he contacted the reporter and said he had missed or overlooked the earlier message.

“I must have missed or bypassed your message. As you can see, I even thought they all came in today. Sorry about that,” he wrote.

He subsequently sent another message outlining his position and suggesting that the newspaper verify his claims with former student leaders and representatives of associations for blind and deaf students.

“Well, this is what I have to say about the situation. I hope it helps in your future report,” he wrote.

He added: “You can confirm whatever I have said with either past SUG leaders or the presidents of blind or deaf students.”

He also acknowledged that the newspaper’s findings could help draw attention to problems requiring action.

“Reports such as yours could always put us on our toes,” he said.

Fees and renovation remain

While Mr Piwuna outlined interventions by his office, his response did not address all the questions raised in the investigation.

In particular, he did not explain how the university spends the N5,000 facility improvement fee and N30,000 utility charge listed in a student’s fee breakdown, or identify the specific improvements funded by the collections.

READ ALSO: ‘I hit him with plank three times,’ suspect recounts killing of UNIJOS student

The investigation presented illustrative calculations based on the university’s reported student intake, estimating that the N5,000 facility improvement charge could amount to about N138.23 million across three academic sessions, if every admitted student paid the fee.

The figure is an estimate, not confirmed university revenue. The facility improvement fee is also not exclusively allocated to hostel improvements.

The investigation questioned how the money was allocated and what improvements students had received in return, particularly those living in the Village Hostel.

Mr Piwuna did not provide an account of the collections or explain how the charges had translated into improvements for students with disabilities.

While the dean says the university will continue trying its best, students with disabilities are still waiting for improvements they can see and use.

Note: Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect the identity of the students featured in the investigation.

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