BY AMANATULLAH ISMAIL
Usmanu danfodiyo University Sokoto with its gargantuan buildings has failed in the aspect of maintaining proper and hygienic toilets for its students. For one to make use of these toilets, unwilling ordeal must be overcome. In a nutshell, the toilets in the school are too dirty that it makes stomachs vomit and throats repell what it has consumed. Male students can manage because their nature allows them to urinate outside, but for female students who could not, the compulsory usage of toilets is unbearable.
The toilet situated opposite the white house and beside STB is one of those supposed ‘convinience’ place but abandoned. Although, it was just opened, the novelty does not make it the best among the rest. In fact, reverse is the case. It is so disgusting that if you should enter there, you would have to hold your breath because of the arid stench that would assail you.
Couple of days ago I had similar experience. When I entered, my eyes stumbled upon a littered floor with excretas, and the maps drawn from urine. Of course as you would guess, there was no water. Imagine, what a toilet would look like without water. There was nothing to flush your dirt after you finish your business, neither was there water to wash your hands.
Because I have no choice, I moved in the direction of the closets, but my eyes could not hold it. The excretas that filled up the closet could make an unconscious drunkard mistake it as water and drink from it. Here is the problem, and this extends to almost all the toilets in our campus. This triggered the question: Who is responsible for this? Where does the negligence lie: the management, cleaners, or the students? Because at that moment, as a victim, I could only feel two things: disappointment and rage.
Not only the one beside STB, there are other toilets like this one but not as bad though. We have toilets in A classes, the one in MH1, ETF3 even the library toilets are sometimes unfit for human usage which is a big shame.
This school is old and consider one of the most prestigious in Nigeria, and seeing us suffering like this — unable to keep our toilets clean — questions our prestige.
The issue of taking extra care of the places we expose our most secured parts, considering the harms attached to unclean and unhygienic toilets, shouldn’t be an issue we have to talk about. Do we even realize the type of harms this situation could cause to the ladies?
If I decide to urinate in the toilets the way it is, I would be inviting toilet infections which, if it gets brutal, could affect the uterus and even the womb — that without spelling it out means doom. And urinating outside is out of options because I have my image and self respect to protect. And if I decide not to urinate at all, that is even more dangerous. It could lead to bladder problem which could cause my bladder to send out urine by itself. You see what dirty toilets has caused to me?
This situation needs urgent attention and rectification because it is making school life strained, difficult, and tiring. The act of urinating is not an option, it is nature.