UNN could be cleaner

SIR: I believe that University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), acclaimed to be the pacesetter, after UI, of University Education in Nigeria, is an epidemic waiting to happen. I was taken aback by the amount of dirt I witnessed in the compound when I visited the institution on their matriculation day recently. I visited the boy’s hostel and, lo and behold, there was a huge refuse dump in front of the expansive but defaced and very dirty hostel. At the Engineering department areas, refuse was scattered everywhere.

  The hall where the matriculation took place was dark and dank with very poor ventilation and all the officers (dressed in their academic gowns) along with the students (properly dressed in suits/ ties/ gowns with a few on matric gowns) with parents and other visitors all sweating it out. The communication equipment were poor indeed.

  One expected better generally from the university. The main entrance that looked majestic barely three years ago is now essentially defaced. The amount of red soil exposed (not tarred, covered) is unbecoming of a university that prides itself in restoring the dignity of man. By the time I left the university (happily) I was barely breathing!

  Thankfully before I left Nsukka town, I visited another place, inhabited by the Catholic priests of the Carmelite order. That place could be described simply as heaven on earth. There, I restored my dignity and sanity. Their environment was created and maintained by human beings, not angels. It can also be replicated at the UNN.

   I understand the Vice Chancellor is a medic. I want to use this medium to appeal to him to declare an environmental emergency at the UNN. God bless Nigeria.

• Nnamdi Ezeonwumelu,

Port Harcourt, Rivers State.