A near tragedy was averted late evening on Wednesday February 5, 2025 when one of the Students’ Hostels at the Kano Campus of the Nigerian Law School was gutted by fire.
The incident, which occurred at about 7.00pm, barely an hour after the students at the campus ended their lectures, however consumed the property, books, clothes and all valuables of the inmates of the hostel.
According to eyewitnesses, though the actual cause of the fire inferno is not yet clear, both the students and staff of the campus are trading blames on the cause of the fire.
While the management blamed the students for using “contraband items” like pressing iron, boiling ring, among other items, the students are blaming the management for their inability to maintain the buildings which were built several decades ago and have been showing visible signs of dilapidation and lack of maintenance.
When our Correspondent visited the student hostels at the campus, they generally looked very unkept, dilapidated and very old.
In fact, most of the bungalows used as hostels at the NLS Kano campus are houses built when the premises served as Bagauda Lake Hotel which was constructed over 40 years ago during the administration of late Abubakar Rimi as Governor of Kano State.
The students have been complaining that the entire campus were infested with rats, snakes, scorpions, rodents and reptiles. As one student noted, during the orientation programme for them, a member of the management told them that these dangerous animals are “friends of the community, that they are harmless and only strike when disturbed in their natural habitats.”
Another student noted that “the worst part is that when students complained about the electrical faults and dilapidated facilities in most of the buildings at the campus, they were totally ignored. It doesn’t matter how many times you complain about these at the Porters’ Lodge.
“You can look around and see for yourself. The dry grasses at the campus are either not cut or were burnt by staff members, heightening the confusion as to the source of Wednesday’s inferno.”
Students spoken to dismissed the management’s view that their use of the so-called contraband electrical appliances may have triggered the fire that caused the burning down of the D47 hostel, insisting that “it is poor management that caused the carrying out of unwholesome environment infractions like burning the lawns, not clearing the drainage of debris, not sweeping public places, including classrooms and lavatories, as well as outrightly ignoring the repairs of faults on the buildings which were usually promptly reported by the students that have rise to the fire incident.”
The Deputy Director-General of the Kano Campus of the institution, Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed, was said to have travelled to Abuja, headquarters of the Law School early Thursday morning when our Correspondents visited the campus to seek for his reactions on the fire incident.
Also, the Director of Academics, Dr. Precious Ahiarammunnah, could be reached as she was said to have gone to court.
The Head of Students Affairs, Hajiya Fatima S. Taiga, was also said not to be available, having gone to make a formal report to the Police. Her subordinate staff said that she is not permitted to speak to the media, neither will they speak on the matter.
But some concerned staff members took journalists round the campus premises, showing them structures and the level of dilapidation and lack of maintenance of facilities at the campus.