Category: Education

By Shamsudeen Abubakar

As the sun dipped below the horizon February 22, 2025, Uthman Umar, a final year student of the French Department stumbled back from the school minimart, his eyes were red and his legs trembling with exhaustion. Just as he was about to collapse, a nearby tree branch caught his arm, preventing his fall.

Umar’s voice quivered as he responded to this reporter’s inquiry, his words tinged with a sense of desperation. The harsh environment seemed to have exacerbated his distress, much like the biting cold of a harmattan morning. As the reporter pressed on with questions, his replies grew increasingly uneasy, hinting at a darker reality.

“My Pixel 3 phone is gone. I’m just coming back from where I retrieved my line,” he said.

He recalled  that he slept by 3:20.p.m, waking up 20 minutes after, only to see that his smart phone was gone forever.

He tried to make an inquiry from the four men reading at the line in front of the Academic mosque but they all responded with an “Ina Lillahi Wa Ina Illahi Raji’un”.

He recounted how the phone had served him  in school and during his SIWES  last year in Lagos.

“I used my phone to read and browse; and it was that same phone I saved all my documents, PDFs, and files during my SIWES in Badagry, Lagos, last year.

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“My biggest fear is the money in my account. I am lucky the thief had a sense of pity for me and left me with this small phone which was also in my front pocket,” he said, pointing at a small Nokia phone.

Tasi’u Aminu, a  400-Level student of Agriculture and also the General Secretary of the Student Union Caretaker Committee, is also another victim who lost his new Tekno Spark 10C that he bought for N73,000 at the Bakassi Hostel.

He said: “My phone was stolen in my room at around 4:00pm  when I went for prayers with the three freshers in my room. I told them to plug in their phones as I plugged mine, but to my greatest astonishment, they all got their phones, only mine was missing.”

He further disclosed that the occurrence hampered him from performing his official duties as a General Secretary.

 “I stopped going online, checking updates, chatting with friends and replying to people who might want to use the secretariat. My writing and reply were  actually affected,” he said.

The victim believed that whoever took his phone did a great service to himself because he (Tasi’u) had managed to buy a new Redmi A3 Pro to use in fulfilling his duty as the General Secretary.

More Woes…

Mubarak Wagana, a 300-Level Law student, felt uneasy when he lost his phone to an unknown thief one night in Gidan Yamma.

After taking an energy drink to enable him to read till day break,  his body system however betrayed his intentions, not even the energy drink could stop the 30 minutes nap he had. But when he woke up, the deed was done.

“In just 30 minutes after I slept off, I couldn’t find my Samsung Galaxy A14 that I bought at the rate of N160,000 beside me,” he said.

However, the theft of Muabarak’s phone cost him a lot. Everything happened like magic to him. He had to go to his friend’s hostel before he could sleep.

“Actually, the theft of my phone affected me because I lost almost all my documents which made me very mad. Though I’ve lost my phone many times, that particular one gave me an ache in the head.

 “I could not sleep at night, I kept  thinking about the phone. I had to leave my hostel to go to a friend’s hostel before  I could sleep.

“But I thank God the thief had a little sense of mercy because he dropped two out of my three sim cards at my doorstep.  It took me two days to get a small phone to reach out to my family,” he said.

Also, Abdulrazak Kamaldeen, a 400-Level Law student, fell victim to a brazen daytime theft. While charging his phone in LC 6 classes, it vanished.

Although he couldn’t recall the exact date, Abdulrazak vividly remembered the incident. It was during his 200-Level days, just as exams were about to commence.

His words:”Immediately my Itel P40 phone was stolen, I tried calling the phone multiple times but it was unreachable. I checked where I was charging it again, but it was nowhere to be found.

“I couldn’t report the incident to security. Instead I bought itel S18.”

He emphasised that people should be more cautious with anyone they are sitting with in the class while reading or when charging their phones.

Chief Security Officer weighs in

To understand the challenges of maintaining security on campus, this reporter spoke with Captain Abdullahi Muhammad, Deputy Chief Security Officer (DCSO) of UDUS.

He emphasised the importance of students taking responsibility for their personal security and property.

“Security personnel secure people’s lives and properties. However, we also have personal security, which is the responsibility of the students to take care of their personal belongings,” he said.

With a large student population, Muhammad acknowledged that it’s impossible to safeguard every student’s property all the time.

“We can’t be guarding a student while he’s sleeping in his room without taking measures. We normally tell students to safeguard themselves during orientation made by the management and even the students union.

“It’s the duty of the students to check on those around them and give us information. Students need to be abreast and inform their colleagues,” he said.

He  cautioned students against complacency, citing the example of  students who plug their phone in class and sleep off without telling anyone.