Unilag always gets good press as the school of first choice. Well, these eight people think otherwise.

Dee /400 level

Nothing fucking works and the hope kills. The thing is, I don’t have any particular grievances against the school. I just hate it. You keep thinking that something will work because it’s the bare minimum but it never does.. Especially at the medical centre. You’ll get there by 10 a.m. and think you’ll be done by 12 a.m. right? Wrong.  If you get there by 10 a.m, just forget all your other plans for that day. That’s not how a system should work. That school has bad vibes, and I wish I knew before I entered. Then again, where else would I have gone? 

I’m just glad I met my friends here. So that’s cool. 

Priscilla/ 200 level

Unilag is expensive, and I don’t mean fees.  If you are not content with the things you have, Unilag and its students will oppress you. I mean, an iPhone 12 is like an iPhone 6 on campus now and students buy cars like they’re bicycles.There is a need to keep up with the joneses here and that life is expensive. Bottle water is seventy naira outside but hundred naira in here, and the cab men never have change, which seems like a ploy to get you to leave it for them.

Olly/ 300 level

From lecturers cancelling lectures, to giving us assignments they won’t grade, the expensive food or the behaviour of non-academic staff, there are so many reasons to hate Unilag.

My faculty doesn’t have a functioning toilet. The only good toilet in the school is at CITS and we have to pay to use it. This makes no sense.

Balloting is another wahala. How can you say you don’t have enough bed spaces for all the students in your school? After making us ballot for hours and days, they’ll still stress us during registration. Why is my GPA important for me to get a bed space? Especially since the hotel’s facilities are disgusting. Why are you putting off the light by 8 a.m? Why do I have to struggle to use the kitchen? Why do I have to beg/pay to use the freezer or anything at all in this school?

Taoheed/ 400 level

One word: rice. Rice is like the only food available in school. Why that?

There is also the ridiculous accommodation price.  Accommodation in the school’s environs is way too expensive and it’s mainly because of unilag.Who did we offend? After you pay that much outside, you’ll still have to deal with armed robbers. Everything is so annoying.

Tsuni/ 400 level

I hate the fact that it’s so difficult to visit your friends in the hostel. How can I be a girl and you’re stopping me from seeing my female friend…IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? It’s ridiculous. I understand not letting boys into girls’ hostels and vice versa even though that one is weird but there should be visiting hours.

Banjo/ 400 level

Thanks to Covid, I have spent almost 6 years trying to get a 4-year degree. It annoys me when I see those tweets where people say the first class in a private university is the second class in a federal university.  We work our butts off studying but what’s the point when the lecturers delight in failing people? If this is what academia is, I want no part in it. Unilag is just living on whatever past glory it had, which means that they once had a system that worked. What happened to it? If you are coming to enjoy life in uni, you will enjoy unilag. But if you are coming to learn, especially as someone with a learning disability, you will hate it here. 

Mide/ 200 level

My biggest problem with unilag is that everyone thinks the students have money. I don’t get it.  They hike up prices inside and outside school because they think the students are rich.. Potters, food sellers, and security guards will beg you for money and I’m, like, bro I’m just as poor tbh. I don’t even have a problem with the begging. What I have a problem with is the entitlement. They’ll make your life hell if you don’t give them. They give preferential treatment to people that obviously have money, especially in the hostels. Off campus, my friends pay rent that people with a family and hope for a future should be paying. If there were enough bed spaces in the school hostels, no one would have to pay N800,000 for a small room off campus.  This is not how things should be. 

Oluwatamilore 

I graduated in 2017 but I hated that place with all my heart. Still hate it.

One experience I’ll never forget is reading with street lights because the transformer of my hostel was damaged for almost a week and the classrooms that had power were too crowded and noisy to read in.

I spent 5 years in that place and I still break out in a cold sweat when I remember the trauma I experienced in that school. My younger brother is in his final year so I know, based on his experiences, that things haven’t gotten better.