BY basic grammar, nuisance is a common noun. But what might its proper noun be? Perhaps, NOUN — the acronym for the National Open University of Nigeria.
To be sure, NOUN cannot be a nuisance. On the contrary, it is a super-functional institution, catering to the tertiary education needs of thousands, if not millions, of Nigerians.
Pray, what would Nigeria’s hundreds, if not thousands, of busy business executives — that talented tribe, even if not exactly boasting university degrees, do? Because they need some university certification, for both personal and corporate reassurance, would they then have to quit their jobs? Never! And it is NOUN to the rescue.
What of the milling youth, downcast veteran failures at university matriculation examinations, so shut out of the conventional universities? Do they just fold their arms and give up on their future? Never! Again, NOUN offers them scholastic redemption.
Even the career politicians, grassroots braves who just clinched the local government chairmanship, but at the mercy of their hyper-educated peers, who lose no opportunity to jeer at “illiterates” who don’t understand anything but crow and preen as council chairs? Well, NOUN again is the answer.
If you doubt, ask Baba Iyabo, the former president who after a NOUN diploma in theology, is gunning for a doctorate in theology, under NOUN’s considerate, understanding and mature wings?
After all these patriotic exertions, how then can NOUN be the proper noun for nuisance?
Well, it’s all about NOUN’s new study centre on Fatai Atere Way, Matori Industrial Estate, Mushin, in Lagos. Indeed, The Nation should be proud and happy that NOUN, that great patriotic educational institution, is one of its neighbours. It sits pretty near the newspaper’s corporate headquarters.
But as NOUN sits pretty, its scholastic bliss virtually poisons the environment. The fellas that secured its new premises in the neighbourhood, which used to host two banks, clearly failed to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) before securing the premises.
Even before the advent of NOUN, Fatai Atere had been prisoner to serious gridlock — no thanks to its T-junction with the popular Ladipo Street, with its heavy concentration of auto spare parts traders, and their generally less-than-orderly conduct. On a bad day, you could be trapped in that traffic for hours — and that is no exaggeration.
Still, NOUN has come to compound the situation. Each time the university hosts its study sessions, cars, presumably of its executive students, are parked bang on the road, since the not-too-small parking lot in its forecourt are either too sacrosanct for the students’ use (perhaps only faculty workers are privileged to enjoy that parking “holy-of-holies”) or just too small to cope with the numerous cars — or both!
Whatever the reason, the mass of cars parked on the road, outside the premises, is a clear nuisance to other road users, subjecting them to needless stress. True, parking vehicles on that road did not come with NOUN. Many of the industrial concerns too, do park vehicles, mostly trailers and trucks, particularly those waiting to load or discharge, on that road.
But NOUN has come to worsen the situation, such that the university is manifesting some notoriety as cause of gridlock anytime it is in session. So, didn’t someone, somewhat anticipate students would need parking space, and why was that not factored into hiring that facility?
Anyway, NOUN authorities should look into this environmental problem. NOUN cannot afford to be a nuisance!
