Students with disabilities at the University of Jos face barriers to independent living and learning due to inaccessible hostels and classrooms.
For Monica Joseph*, accessing the bathroom in her hostel at the University of Jos is a daily exercise in improvisation. She crawls in on her hands and knees because there is no ramp or other support devices that could aid her to enter the bathroom with her wheelchair.
"I become even dirtier after coming out of the bathroom," she said.
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Her experience is more challenging during the rainy season. When water collects around the hostel, Ms Joseph crawls on the wet ground to enter or exit. Her wheelchair is always outside, sometimes exposed to the rain.
The university's Village Hostel, where students with disabilities live, was built in the mid-1980s, alongside other early halls such as Abuja Hostel, built in 1984.
During a visit to the hostel in September, PREMIUM TIMES observed that the bathroom was old and poorly maintained, with no ramp, grab rails or other accessibility features to enable wheelchair users to enter and move around independently.
The toilet area was dirty and emitted a strong stench, with human excreta visible in parts of the facility.
The difficulty does not end at the bathroom door. Ms Joseph lives in a hostel compound surrounded by bushes, where uneven surfaces, stones and potholes make movement difficult for wheelchair users.
Some routes within the hostel environment are difficult or impossible to navigate independently, while some rooms and sections of the compound are inaccessible because they lack ramps.
As Ms Joseph spoke with the reporter during the visit, we noticed a visually impaired student falling while trying to bring water within the compound.
Accessibility challenges also extend to the lecture halls and classrooms, particularly within the Faculty of Education.
Most of the classrooms visited lack provisions to support independent movement for people with disabilities.
Classroom layouts also offer limited support for students with mobility difficulties.
Without these facilities, students depend on their non-disabled colleagues to move around campus and access lecture halls. Such dependence has become part of their daily life at the school.
James Patrick*, a visually impaired student, recalled an incident in 2025 when he fell while crossing a bridge on his way to school.
"I fell off the bridge because there was no guide to show me the safe path. A woman passing by raised the alarm, and other students came to rescue me," Mr Patrick said.
The University of Jos trains professionals in special education. The programme began in 1978 as a unit in Educational Psychology before developing into a department offering certificate, diploma and degree programmes.
The Bachelor of Education programme commenced in September 1981, following earlier efforts to establish formal training for special education teachers in Nigeria.
Today, the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation Sciences offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes covering visual impairment, hearing impairment, learning disabilities and rehabilitation sciences.
The department also operates a resource room for students with visual impairments across the university's faculties.
Its services include braille transcription, converting lecture notes and examination papers into accessible formats, and audio recordings of learning materials.
These provisions are intended to help students with visual impairments participate in academic activities and access course materials.
However, accounts from students and observations by PREMIUM TIMES revealed the challenges of translating inclusive education into everyday university life.
The Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, which came into force on 17 January 2019, prohibits disability-based discrimination and guarantees access to the physical environment.
Section 3 of the Act states that persons with disabilities have the right to access the physical environment and buildings on an equal basis with others.
Section 4 requires public buildings to incorporate accessibility aids, including ramps and lifts where necessary.
The Act also gave existing public buildings a five-year transition period to make the required modifications. That transition period expired in January 2024.
The Act also addresses education. Section 17 provides for the right of persons with disabilities to education and requires public schools to be inclusive and accessible.
Students at the University of Jos pay fees that include a facility improvement fee. A fee breakdown provided by a student lists ₦5,000 for facility improvement and ₦30,000 for utilities, alongside other charges.
Although the facility improvement fee is not exclusively allocated to hostels, the payment raises questions about what improvements students are getting in return, particularly those living in Village Hostel, where they are charged about ₦24,000 per session.
The university's charges have also sparked controversy.
In July 2023, UNIJOS proposed increasing undergraduate fees from about ₦45,000 to ₦213,050 for students in 100 and 200 levels and Direct Entry students, while students in 300 level and above were reportedly to pay ₦160,000.
The proposal drew protests and negotiations with the Students' Union Government, after which the management revised the charges.
Students' current charges reportedly range from about ₦130,000 to more than ₦200,000, depending on their department and other applicable fees.
The scale of the university's student intake offers context for examining these collections.
UNIJOS reported screening 8,218 students for the 2023/2024 academic session, registering more than 10,600 in 2024/2025, and enrolling 8,828 students, including 75 foreign students, for 2025/2026.
Illustrative calculations, not confirmed university revenue:
The estimated ₦138.23 million in facility improvement charges collected over three years raises questions about how the funds were allocated and what improvements were delivered.
For students with disabilities like Ms Joseph and Mr Patrick, the question is immediate: if they have been paying charges for facility improvement, why do basic barriers to safe movement, sanitation and independent access remain?
PREMIUM TIMES contacted the Dean of Student Affairs, Chris Piwuna; the Vice-Chancellor, Tanko Ishaya; and the university's spokesperson and Deputy Registrar of Information, Publications, Public Relations and Protocol, Emmanuel Madugu, for their responses to the findings in this report.
The newspaper sent Messrs Piwuna and Ishaya WhatsApp messages detailing its observations at Village Hostel and other campus facilities, along with questions about the use of students' fees, planned renovations, and measures to improve accessibility.
While Mr Piwuna declined a phone call and subsequently read the message without responding, Mr Ishaya has not responded as of the time of this report.
Mr Madugu, who was also contacted by phone, acknowledged the observations in a WhatsApp message and said he would seek feedback from the relevant units and respond later.
However, subsequent calls to him were not returned, and he has yet to provide further feedback as of the time of this report.
The President of the Students' Union Government (SUG) at the University of Jos, Younglan Talyoung, acknowledged the conditions at Village Hostel, which accommodates students with disabilities.
He said the union had written to the university management several times to demand improvements.
He described the hostel environment as unconducive even for students without disabilities, let alone those who depend on accessible facilities to move around independently.
Mr Talyoung said the union did an assessment of the hostels and sent a comprehensive letter to the vice-chancellor detailing problems across the compounds, including leaking roofs, poorly maintained toilets, inaccessible toilet entrances, uneven blockwork, and areas prone to flooding during the rainy season.
"There is a waterlogged area during the rainy season. The water floods right into their rooms," he said.
He added that the union had raised these concerns with management several times, but substantial improvements were yet to be made.
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PREMIUM TIMES made several attempts to contact Ayuba Gufwan, executive secretary of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD), the statutory agency responsible for promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities in Nigeria, on the accessibility challenges documented at the University of Jos.
The newspaper sent him messages introducing the investigation and requesting an interview on the commission's enforcement of disability rights, the university's obligations under the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, and possible steps to address the conditions at Village Hostel.
PREMIUM TIMES also called Mr Gufwan, but the call was declined with an automated response stating, "I am so sorry, I can't answer the phone right now. How can I help you?"
Following a subsequent message, he apologised for missing the calls, saying he was occupied and suggesting they speak later.
The newspaper proposed calling him at 5 p.m., but subsequent calls went unanswered and were not returned.
He has not answered the questions as of the time of this report.
His response was sought to clarify what steps the commission could take to hold public institutions accountable for accessibility failures and ensure students with disabilities have equal access to safe accommodation and education.
While the university management keeps mum, Ms Joseph, Mr Patrick and hundreds of other students with disabilities at UNIJOS continue to struggle with hazardous living conditions, with some forced to stay awake at night when rainwater enters their rooms at Village Hostel.
Nigeria's Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, provides for access to public buildings.
Our findings raise questions about how the university is meeting those accessibility obligations.
For an institution whose motto is "Discipline and Dedication", the conditions documented in this report present a troubling test of those principles.
(Note: Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect the identity of the students featured in this report).
Read the original article on Premium Times.
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