A student hostel built with public funds at the University of Lagos has drawn criticism after rents surged to levels many students say they cannot afford.
The facility, constructed at a cost of N1.6 billion, was designed to ease accommodation shortages on campus.
However, an investigation by BusinessDay shows that bed spaces in the hostel are now being rented for as high as N950,000 per session.
The project, officially named “Construction and Furnishing of a 484-bed Landmark Student Hostel,” was funded under the 2020 Zonal Intervention Project and inaugurated in January 2024 and is linked to Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The hall was commissioned on January 3, 2024, by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, who represented his predecessor, Gbajabiamila.
Findings indicate that single rooms in the hostel go for about N950,000 per session, while bed spaces in four-man en-suite rooms cost around N710,000. These rates are similar to prices charged by private hostels around the university.
Students say the high cost has placed the facility beyond the reach of many who were expected to benefit from it.
According to a student, he spends about N8,000 daily on transportation due to living off-campus, adding that financial pressure often affects his academic focus.
Another student, Williams Motunrayo, said she pays N700,000 to share a room with five others, more than three times her tuition fee of N220,000.
Similarly, Damilare Ibiyemi said he pays N700,000 for a bed space, noting that accommodation costs now take priority over tuition due to limited availability and intense competition for housing.
According to the investigation, some of the students at the University of Lagos who spoke to BusinessDay said they initially justified the cost of accommodation at the Gbajabiamila Hall of Residence because they believed the facility was privately funded, an impression they linked to its naming.
“Many of us believed it was a donation from the former Speaker. That’s why we refer to the hostel as ‘Gbaja’. It’s even the reason some students felt the cost was justified.
“Because, if it’s a gift from him, then the cost of living there would understandably be the prerogative of the donor and maybe the school management,” says Egbas.
The investigation further revealed that the hostel’s pricing structure mirrors that of privately owned facilities, including the ULWS Hostel, raising concerns about why a publicly funded project is operating on a commercial basis.
According to the report, efforts to obtain a response from Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to the President and facilitator of the Femi Gbajabiamila Hall of Residence project, were unsuccessful, and
as of the time of filing this report, no response had been received yet.