UNN (CAMPUS) CHAPTER

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka

FIRST YEAR

Family

You might not believe there is a lecturer in this group Selfie. Point him out if you can

The Doctorate Convocation Ceremony of the Mystery Lecturer- Dr Casmir Mbaegbu 

 

Probably the wildest and most vulnerable state you will ever see Medical students at UNN get-- at the after party-- until everyone resigns to mounting fences and their defences.

 First Research Project in my First Year on ''Substantiating Research Methodologies in Social Science''

B.     Issue: Student Hustle

Summary:

Student Welfare Survey Questionnaire about the Contemporary Challenge of “Student Hustle”

A.    Hypothesis & Description:  The survey was carried out by applying the survey pattern displayed below as a method of empiricism collecting data on the observed or discovered challenge termed Student Hustle. The coined term Student Hustle is the physical struggle, strife, scramble and discomfort suffered by students at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in their bid to attend classes and participate in lectures/ teaching and learning activities.

B.     Hypothesis: The observed problem attracted suggestions and explanations including:

ROOT CAUSE: The underperforming and abysmal condition of educational facilities on my campus, UNN, is one in the many culminations of the poor investment and funding of education in Nigeria. It is a strand in the deep-rooted and agelong problem of negligent interest in the Nigerian educational sector that has hunted and threatened generations of students hitherto. It is a problem that demands the active involvement of every student belonging to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria and as a student currently situated in the University of Nigeria campus, and as a member of the University of Nigerian Medical Student Association (UNMSA), it is a problem I hope to address. AGENCY: Academic Staff of Universities in Nigeria (ASUU): represents and protects the interests of its members by persuading cooperation of the Nigerian government towards revitalizing the educational sector and development of Nigerian universities. University of Nigeria Medical Student Association (UNMSA): The medical student body on campus in charge of student welfare. And the many concerted efforts of citizens, students and staff unions, academic institutions, pressure groups, and the Nigerian government to arrest

POSSIBLE CAUSES OF STUDENT HUSTLE: ·       Overpopulation of students due to an abnormal admission rate. ·       Inadequate amenities to adequately support the influx of students.

CONSEQUENCES: ·       Poor performance, participation and proficiency of students academically ·       Demoralization of Lecturers and Students ·       Intellectual doldrum ·       Deficient assimilation and proper interaction between students and lecturers

SOLUTION: ·       Display of composure, responsibility, culture and honesty on the student’s part. ·       Provision of adequate facilities for effective and practical teaching and learning conditions and theatre buildings to accommodate the population of students.

 

Quantitative Data and Survey Distribution:

Premises on Campus	Positive Variables of Students’ Responses				Negative Variables of Students’ Responses
	Non-strenuous	Conducive	Comfortable	Total	Strenuous	Unconducive	Uncomfortable	Total
GS Building	1	2	-	3	3	4	-	7
PAA	-	-	-	0	1	3	3	7
EKPO REF	-	2	2	4	1	-	4	5
Library	1	-	1	2	-	6	8	14
MIS Building	-	1	-	1	-	5	2	7
Total	2	5	3	10	5	10	17	40
% Values				20%				80%

Development question: How can optimal academic environment and better standards and facilities of education be maximized at the University of Nigeria (UNN) to achieve maximum student welfare?

Treatise on the 2020 ASUU Strike (Mission and Vision Statement):

The many federal universities in Nigeria have been under the siege of underdevelopment, national neglect and poor funding to date. I am convinced this is more than a mere inconvenience to the over 1.2 million students in federal universities in Nigeria who are currently at home over conflicts on the importance of education in the country between the Nigerian government and pressure groups like ASUU.

The Academic Staff of Universities in Nigeria (ASUU) takes drastic measures like incessant strike actions that collapse academic activities in Nigeria at the expense of students whose academic and professional progress are impeded.

This problem has stagnated the intellectual growth and empowerment of Nigerian students like myself such that the dreams, passion and goals of students who are poised to leave long-lasting signatures across the world are disregarded and underutilized.

 Indeed, it is a complex national problem that affects the socioeconomic, medical, industrial, scientific and technological growth of the nation and contributes to the massive brain drain in Nigeria.

It is also a personal problem to us, the University of Nigeria Medical Student Association at the grass root, and one I am very passionate about.

At UNMSA, we are intentional about being heirs of the globalized and digital era of the 21st century where the measure of a state’s global world power lies in the premium of its educational system and a time where the underpinnings of solid education are an element of communication, critical thinking, writing, and creativity, or a weapon of ingenuity, empiricism, invention. We pursue intelligence against the backdrop of a world rapidly evolving with the overlap of arts and the unquenchable cornerstones and curiosity of science and technology and by united efforts, sensitize ourselves to the dynamism of education.

We struggle to not only organize tutorials and sessions for free to assist the academic performance of medical students, aiming to introduce contemporary context that supplements school curriculum.

By littlest contributions and selfless voluntary skills and human avail electronic study materials, textbooks, and virtual study clubs and platforms on Whatsapp, Telegram and Facebook for the active academic/social interaction of students and members; we endeavour to empower ourselves with adequate knowledge of the workings of the world.  I have written a term paper that addresses and redresses the poor remuneration of lecturers in Nigerian universities which is another offshoot of the identified root cause of student hustle: Poor national funding of education.

 

Tragedy Upon the Outbreak of COVID-19 

 The message of my FROSH Year in UNN-- Adaptation

Fledgeling and eager to start the journey in my new academic pursuit, I started off the semester very optimistic and expectant of a lot of adventures, events and socialization. I felt fulfilled and exuberant to embrace whatever that lay beyond the rigours of meriting an admission into UNN to study Medicine and Surgery. I had always yearned to belong with the best and understood the quality of industriousness attributable to such category; thus, I anticipated a recompense for the level of hard work incumbent on students of UNN, as lions and lionesses, to be a befitting den.

However, my courage was heavily stunned by the institutional setting and flux of students admitted on campus, so much a toll that the admission rate for the section was largely anormal. Consequently, the already dismal accommodating capacities of the hostels, buildings, auditoriums, halls, and other structural facilities were exceeded. This left students scrambling, struggling for space and a conducive learning environment. The circumstance was terrible. But as is almost always the case in Nigeria, flexibility and adaption to ills like this were the only options available for the victims. Therefore, I didn't hesitate to reach for my elements, secure available opportunities, and gain a balanced ground with the assistance of my coursemates. 

Eventually, just when school activities were going with a swing, the dreaded COVID-19 interdicted the timeline of virtually everything-- an unprecedented total nerf on the school's programs, events and equally the plans and ambitions of students. Despite fully understanding its ever-pervasive infectivity at the time, no one predicted it would trammel on the conclusion of the semester as abruptly as it did. Shortly. an immediate order was put forward by the administration, mandating students to evacuate the campus within a certain period of time. The aura on campus was sullen. The gloom came to a head when most students, already registered and cleared in their respective departments, were transferred to other departments to study a different course either within or outside the same faculty right before the evacuation order or afterwards, depending on the tale of the good number of students affected:

 "My student profile shows I was transferred to a new department and shortly, I received a notification from JAMB indicating I accept or reject the new course of study. What becomes of my dreams now, my parents' hard work and expectations!" 

The overwhelming simmer of hopelessness and despondency erupted by these concurrent mishaps shattered the image of the future for most students. The effect was so immense that any option for suicide would not be easily waved off. However, peers and family were around to inspire hope in the hearts of those whom it was void. Though unbearable, this bleak turn of fate could hardly be influenced because it was justifiable. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was responsible for the change of courses but for the right reasons: to compensate for the overstretched carrying capacity of the various departments in the university. Little could be done by the students and their guardians to reverse the legitimate tragedy. Therefore, in line with the popular saying that when two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled, the students were left to ''embrace'' the ugly fate, and of course, for those willing to move on, ''adapt'' to it.

THE ENDSARS PROTEST

Originality of #EndSARS(Public Opinion):

End Corruption!

End Social Injustice!

Grant us mental and physical security!

Reassure our fundamental Liberties!

Instrumentalize our dreams and represent our interests!

Remake Nigeria…

Why is there or should there at all be a delay in the execution of these demands?

#EndSARS, a movement whose very inception marks the clamour of citizens to be granted full ownership of their fundamental human rights- rights that have long suffered callous strangulation, even before the glorified “Rule of Law”.

#EndSARS, a movement that is not surprisingly gaining rapid momentum across the country necessarily because the spirit of the nation’s youths are now woke from slumber, rather vibrantly, not only repelling the anaesthetics of the doctors of the country but also wittingly garnering curative to the timeless ills inflicted pervasively on the lives of the people; ills so virulent they would tear down defences of the simply encapsulated movement of #EndSARS.

#EndSARS, a course potent enough to obliviate the disease of suppressing the voice of the people, the supposed bedrock of democracy, to not be left in the shadowy dark trance of ignorance; their stamina against the tides of oblivion imposed by poverty and illiteracy; their resilience to oppose the rife tradition of leaning rather too hard on the grace of “Imperial Christianity”-- as my uncle popularly refers religion-- hoping that a miracle would uphold their liberation out of the blue: No, the ancient convention of our forefathers underscoring the cling to fictitious “opium of the masses”, in the words of the renowned philosopher Karl Marx, as the colonial rulers prosecuted the exploitative scramble and domination of West Africa, Nigeria, must not be relived. The revolutionary bringing of the 21st century in which there is absolute utilization of the inherent principles of democracy and constitutionalism shall be fully lived up to.

I, we, in one voice demonstrating EndSars! EndSars! EndSars!, have chosen to break free from the intellectual stagnation of the Dark Ages into the modern age of reason and enlightenment.

Notwithstanding, in light of the substantial loss of precious irreplaceable lives of brothers of the cause, it is evident that the prominent political culture of polluting the tenets of democracy still lingers, but they are yet to learn of how much the burning fire is fueled for each loss of a brother. The nation we have become in the numbers of this cause is a promptitude whose time is undeniably pressing-- lucid. Lucid because any sensible nation-state would unhesitantly harness the power belying the exuberance of the people, integral bodies of sovereignty, even without any checks of protest motions, or revolts fostering natural intrinsic demands that ought to have been priority, preconceived and enforced by the linage of seeming bureaucratic administrations, particularly the ageless agitating strike actions for a well infrastructured educational sector. I mean… should these be criteria at all? Now guys take a look at the stats below, of the survey carried out by UNN freshmen this year, me inclusive, before the restrictive impingement of the COVID-19 outbreak.

This is an institution that is supposed to be the epicentre of technological and scientific innovation or literary creativity in the arts, nationally, as is implied in the denomination “prestigious University of Nigeria”. However, it is virtually a landscape desolate of ingenuity and invention despite picking the best among the litter of best brains in the country- very sad! The underpinning resolve to deny leaders of tomorrow elements that promise headway in a world rapidly evolving in technological curiosity and in a competitive global economic market marks the beginning of leeway on the overall stability of the state-- the giant of Africa or not. An absolute disgrace to intellectualism, the very soreness of withdrawing funds that would at least maintain the solid and beautiful foundation of the institution laid by the colonial administration, for whose case I now rethink the ascription “exploitative”. It is a spit on the image of the state to toy with the future of the young generation of thinkers by deferring actions to relieve strike until the eminence of an irrevocable, gearing protest of the victimized.

Now tell me, how will a state ever be able to advance from the stigmatic reference of “developing” to a gainly “developed” given the circumstance?

#ENDSWATNOW! I share your pain brothers.