Students of the University of Jos on Tuesday staged a protest over the prolonged power outage affecting hostels within the institution, expressing frustration over worsening living conditions and disruption to academic activities.
The protesting students, who blocked parts of the campus during the demonstration, said they had been without electricity for more than a week, describing the situation as unbearable.
They lamented that the blackout had severely affected their studies, welfare, and general well-being since the commencement of the current academic session.
Speaking during the protest, one of the students, Felix Bala, accused the university authorities of failing to address repeated complaints over the lack of electricity and other basic amenities in the hostels.
“Since our resumption, we have not had power in our hostels. We were told that power was cut off. We demand the immediate restoration of electricity,” Bala said.
The students noted that the outage had also disrupted water supply across the hostels because pumping machines depended on electricity to function.
According to them, the absence of running water had worsened sanitary conditions within the hostels, with toilets and other facilities left unclean for days.
Bala explained that the crisis began last week when students discovered there was neither electricity nor water in the hostels.
He said students waited from Thursday through Monday in anticipation of intervention from the university management, but no improvement was recorded.
“We have endured this situation for days without any concrete response from the authorities. There is no electricity, no water, and the hostel environment has become unhealthy,” he added.
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The protesters further expressed disappointment that repeated complaints made to the school management had not yielded results, warning that demonstrations would continue until their demands were addressed.
Another student, who spoke anonymously, disclosed that some off-campus students attempted to persuade the protesters to suspend the demonstration and allow university authorities more time to resolve the issue.
However, the appeals reportedly failed as many students insisted that the blackout and poor hostel conditions had persisted for too long.
As of the time of filing this report, officials of the University of Jos had yet to issue an official response regarding the protest and the power outage.
Efforts to reach the President of the Students’ Union Government, Senator Younglan Talyoung, for comments were unsuccessful.
Similarly, the Dean of Students’ Affairs, Professor Chris Piwuna, could not be reached as his telephone line was switched off.
The protest adds to growing concerns over infrastructural challenges and welfare conditions in public tertiary institutions across the country, where students have increasingly raised complaints about inadequate power supply, poor water systems, and deteriorating hostel facilities.