Accommodation: UNILAG may allow squatting, to sanction racketeers

By Adesina Wahab

LAGOS — FACED with inadequate accommodation as over 30,000 students jostle for about 8,000 bed spaces, the management of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, may approve squatting for students with their colleagues, just as it vowed to sanction those engaged in hostel racketeering.

The Dean, Students Affairs, Prof. Musa Obalola, in a chat with an online medium, said: “We’re also deeply worried and I can assure you that we’ve been trying our best to curb it (hostel racketeering) as much as possible.

“We have several stipulated sanctions for students who are caught selling either bed spaces or squatting spaces.

“The minimum you can get is two or one semester suspension.”

The punishment, the DSA pointed out, would be pronounced after a suspected racketeer is caught, tried, and found guilty by the school’s Student Disciplinary Board.

Asked what measures have been put in place to resolve the challenge of inadequate hostels and racketeering, Obalola said that once allocation is made to successful applicants, the school issues hostel ID cards to them, while staff go around checking randomly.

He threatened that the school authority would come down heavily on those who were caught in the illegal act.

The DSA said: “Some of the students don’t look at the circumstances surrounding accommodation. Why deny your fellow students from bidding, keep the accommodation you got already and still go ahead to bid and sell?”

In addition, the University said it would publish details of students who are involved in hostels racketeering, while, with the government’s approval, it would enter into a private partnership arrangement for new hostels with over 7,000 bed spaces to be commissioned and delivered within 24 months.

It was gathered that one of the official female hostels (Honours) with a capacity for 511 bed spaces is currently not being allocated to students due to renovation.

Having survived a similar experience in the last academic session, due to renovation, many UNILAG students have again been exposed to hostel challenges in the current session due to the late registration of freshers, unexplained administrative lacuna in some departments, and misconduct of racketeers and their agents.

In some instances, racketeers sell a bed space for between N240,000 and N300,000, while a squatting space goes for as high as N180,000.

At the beginning of the current session, most freshers (100 Level and Direct entry), due to their late registration, were forced to come for lectures from their homes, some spending over N5,000 on transportation on a daily basis.

Also, in the Department of Quantity Surveying, most of the  200 Level students could not participate in the first hostel balloting for students from 200 to 500 levels.

It was learned that the students in the 200 Level of QS could not ballot for hostels owing to alleged non-registration of their courses.

Amidst the crisis, the UNILAG management has announced another balloting opportunity for students who were unable to secure accommodation in the previous exercise.

According to an official news bulletin obtained on January 5, 2026, the DSA office disclosed that the balloting application for the temporary hostel accommodation for the 2025/2026 academic session would open on Tuesday, January 6, 2026.

The bulletin read in part: “Eligibility Criteria: 200 to 500 level students who have completed course registration for the 1st Semester of the 2025/2026 academic session, and are within the regular duration for their respective programmes are eligible to apply for bed spaces.

“Application Process: Eligible 200 to 500 Level students must apply online for the temporary hostel accommodation during the designated application window, beginning at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 6, 2026.

“Allocation Criteria: After the application window closes, temporary bed spaces will be allocated randomly among all eligible applicants.”

It added that the application will end as soon as the limited temporary bed spaces are filled adding that the notification to shortlisted applicants will be sent on January 7, 2026.

The payment deadline, the bulletin indicated, is January 9, 2026.

Movement into the Hall of Residence will be on January 13, 2026.

Again, having been confronted with the extreme dimension of the hostel’s scarcity and effects on its students, the institution’s authority has also introduced another window described as Temporary Hostel Accommodation (Squatting).

While noting that the measure is illegal, the school, in another news bulletin released on Monday, said the temporary arrangement is to address the challenges many students face in commuting daily from their homes to campus for lectures.

The bulletin emphasised that the allocation of temporary accommodation is the sole responsibility of the Student Affairs Division, specifying that bona fide bed space holders are not to personally assign this privilege to another student. 

It directed students who qualify for consideration to submit a duly signed and stamped biodata form of full payment of all school dues, and a copy of their course registration form for the current session.

The bulletin reminded applicants that the temporary accommodation is not a right, but a privilege granted under exceptional circumstances. 

The post Accommodation: UNILAG may allow squatting, to sanction racketeers appeared first on Vanguard News.