Photos: Rainstorm Renders UNN Students Homeless

A rainstorm on Sunday night has left several students of the University of Nigeria Homeless after roofs of their hostels were blown off during the rainstorm.

Many items, belonging to the students were also lost in the heavy downpour which started late on Sunday night and continued into the early hours of Monday.

The rain also uprooted some trees in the campus, or had their branches broken, by the rainstorm.

No life was lost in the incident.

One of the students, who identified herself simply as Jacinta, told our correspondent on Tuesday that the students in the affected hostels are currently homeless.

“As I am talking to you, we are homeless. Our foams were soaked by the rain, we lost private properties which were damaged by the rain.

“Even electrical appliances got spoiled because, surprisingly, the light was on at the time the rain poured into the rooms although electricity had to be disconnected because some people experienced electric shocks.

“After we managed to put our rain-soaked belongings together, we had to look for places to pass the remainder of the night,” Jacinta said.

It was learnt that, as a temporary measure to alleviate the plight of the affected students, the school authorities have assigned them to other hostels, pending when the roofs would be replaced.

However, one of the affected students who did not wish to be named, said the university management should also provide some ‘sort of compensation’ for the victims.

“I don’t want to blame the school management for this; but it is obvious that the roof was not strong enough to withstand the wind, which means that they were not properly fixed.

“Now, due to no fault of ours, we have lost most of our property, and in addition to that, we have been rendered homeless.

“W‎e are victims and should be treated as such. We deserve compensation.

“Beyond restoring the roofs, I believe the school management should also compensate the affected students for this major inconvenience. I think so because if they had made sure that the buildings were properly constructed, we would not have suffered this calamity,” the aggrieved student said.

The student, who demanded an immediate restoration of the roofs of the affected hostels, added that the school management should also evaluate the state of other buildings in the campus, to avoid possible disasters in the future.

He said, “We are lucky that no life was lost in this incident but we might not be so lucky next time, so the school management should go beyond just replacing the roofs, they should make sure that the other hostels and other buildings are in order.”