Cash-For-Comfort (1): ‘Executive DV’ and The Untold Hostel Barters in UDUS
Haminah has spent three years on campus as a student. And has applied for bedspace in the University hostels in all these years, but was only lucky during her first year. A welcoming gesture that made her ‘Jambito’ (a popular lingo for freshers on campus) year seems unforgettable. In the first part of this story by olokooba Abdulwasiu, you shall read of how he chose to explore the world of hostels barters in UDUS – and how many students’ hope are battered, and sauntered to either squat or buy at an exorbitant rate.
Living in the University owned students’ halls of residence is most preferred by most students of Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto – not because of any ease of getting allocated but the means for mutual interaction among different tribes. Hausa people to relate well with Yoruba. Likewise, Muslims breaking undue enmity border with people of Christian faith. And vice versa. And not to talk of its richness in the flow of useful youthful experiences is a sin. Good. Bad. Life in hostel is to many students a preps for what is obtainable in the outside world.
Danfodiyo university halls of residence are age-long built to ease the stress of students who might detest burying their heads just anywhere their legs direct them. And perhaps to subdue the cost of living, too. But despite the number of hostels available – for both male and female, though live separately, hardly would a new session passed without it being a source of misery. And a barter of luck and helplessness. A tale of highest bidder.
All was set for Haminah (full name withheld) to resume school after four weeks the university had started for a new session. And this time, it was 2019/2020 academic session. She was ready as Freddy to resume to class after the expiration of a three months old holiday because lecturers have started to place lecturing above holidaying – seriously in her faculty.
As usual, the issue of where to bury her head and luggage from the night tax collectors still made her wander in thought. And why she accepted being kept away from reuniting with her long departed friends. But while the dust from the jubilation of those who made it among the first batch of accommodation list still hovering in the air, no word describes Haminah’s situation than hapless. She was not yet alloted to a bedspace in the University hall of residence. And the hope of getting one seems a mirage. To her, going to school at that time, one need to ponder, again and again. Meanwhile, Haminah has made up her mind already, but instead she gently threw at this writer a hotseat question, she asks, “If I reach school where will I stay? I was not yet allocated a bed space”
Haminah has spent three years on campus as a student. And has applied for bedspace in the University hostels in all these years, but was only lucky during her first year. A welcoming gesture that made her ‘Jambito’ (a popular lingo for freshers on campus) year seems unforgettable.
But during her second year, she was not given a bedspace. This gave her no other choice than to buy bedspace from a friend. And according to her, it was a barter of choice for cash – for her most prefered hall of residence popularly known as ‘DV’.
Adieu To ‘Squatting‘
Like Haminah, Aisha (not real name) was also ill-fated on allocation of bedspace. In narration of her ordeal, like others, she applied for hostel the very night the portal was opened.
“That night I didn’t have data. So I went to MIS (management information systems) to use wireless. I ensured I reach MIS before 6:30pm (the time fixed for the opening of application portal). It took me more than two-hours before I could successfully applied for hostel because the server was bad,” she recalled, of how accessing application portal for hostels in UDUS is usually a tug of war.
Three accommodation lists were released already, still, Aisha couldn’t get a badspace. She was so depressed that her eyes grew wistful as she recalled that she had sworn not to be mockingly regarded a squatter again for the rest of her days on campus. “Will I squat again this year? No. Never again,” she recounts, still determined.
Cash-For-Comfort, Hostel For Sale
By the time another student who simply identified herself as Zainab returned to school, she had no bedspace of her own, allocated to her by the school – like every other plebeians in UDUS. Zainab became helpless, not because she couldn’t find where to sleep but had to tread long path to campus from her Aunty’s place in town – every working days. Bitter-sweet, she explained her travails, “It was very stressful and pricey, I spent almost #500 every day.”
This was how she was living, spending monies meant for her feeding and up-keeping on transit, up to when she decided to buy a bedspace at ‘I Block – one of the female halls of residence, from a friend.
“After several negotiations with her, she accepted to sell the bedspace for 17k which I paid and obtained the necessary documents and secured the bedspace,” she told this reporter how she maneuvered her way from a bruised hope, to become a bunk owner in one of the hostels.
However, selling of badspace — for whatever agreeable price above #10,090, the university fixed amount is a wont amid students of UDUS despite it is written noticeably in a single paragraph after the student’s undertaking on the Allocation Letter which reads: “SALES OF BEDSPACE IS ILLEGAL, DO NOT BUY, DO NOT SELL, ANYBODY FOUND IN SUCH ACT WILL BE PENALISED”. However, students turn deaf ears and blinded eyes to this warning notice, perhaps it’s still believed that necessity knows no law.
While speaking with this reporter, Zainab admitted that she knew of the warning, but “What should you I do? Since I don’t want to squat, I must buy the bedspace,” she asks.
“No Place Like DV”
Hajarah has been living at Nana Asmau Hall of residence, popularly known as ‘DV’ since her 100-level days on campus. Though she was allocated to a bedspace in a different hall, known as ‘Kwankwasiyya’. But the gods in her heart need be appeased, and could only get pleased by placing DV above others – a more than enough reason why she had to find her way at all cost. To her, “no place like DV. It’s very neat, not rowdy and there is always availabity of water.”
Unlike other hostels, DV as it is popularly called seems the favourite hall of residence of almost every female students. Meanwhile, like any student could think, until this reporter get cleared that rooms in ‘DV’ is as spacious as other hostels – though rarely crowded, it was also more or less a building specially built for special students. But still, many people believe students usually allocated to DV are mature and mostly regarded as ‘classic’, of all female dwellers of students’ hall of residence.
“I bought a new bedspace at DV because I can’t reside at the hall I was allocated to,” Hajarah confessed, her gestures corroborate her desired decision, taken ‘rightly’.
35k ‘Last Last’ for DV
Aisha Usman, one of the dwellers of DV hostel, narrated how she beggarly pleaded with a friend to sell a bedspace in DV to her.
The haggling on hostel price which held on WhatsApp platform pictured how Aisha was begging the seller to reduce from the least price of #35,000, sum of money – as placed on it by her unknown seller.
“Please reduce the price for me, I am very poor”, according to one of Aisha’s Whatsapp messages. Bent on her already fixed price, her unknown seller replies her haggling, one best described as a ‘no-mercy’ response, “35k last last for DV”.
But speaking with this reporter, Aisha disclosed that she later did not buy the bedspace because she could not afford it. “If I could afford it I would have purchased it,” she noted confidently.
“I Bought My Bedspace for 34k”
While getting hostel to reside is an headaching fate of many students, those who could better be described as lucky ones are full options at hand – of where to live, and where to thrash at the expense of any highest bidder.
Haminah, as she would prefer to be called, who also regarded DV as the only hostel she can live because of its neatness and its tidy nature, told this reporter of how she bought her own bedspace in DV Hall of residence at the rate of #34,000, sum of money.
In an encounter with this reporter, Haminah claimed DV as the best of all female hostels in UDUS campus, “DV is better because of comfort, neatness and tidiness. I bought my bedspace for 34k.
“There is no place I can live except DV. In fact, I can buy it more than the price if I can afford it,” she said, boastfully.
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two parts story that tends to expose the untold students’ act of selling accommodation in UDUS. All names and attributions therein are depicted the best they could.