Honestly, being a student in Delta State right now requires a special kind of survival grace. Every single day, we wake up to calculate the cost of everything, but lately, the math that is breaking our hearts the most isn’t inside the examination hall—it is the amount we have to drop just to get to class. The sudden, continuous hike in transport fares by local Keke riders and campus shuttles has turned going to lectures into an absolute luxury. In my opinion, if the school managements and local authorities do not step in to regulate this transport madness, many of us will stop coming to class entirely, not because we are lazy, but because we simply cannot afford the legwork.
Let us look at the reality on the ground. A short distance from the popular student residential areas to the school gate that used to be a standard price has now doubled, and in some places, tripled. If you have a broken schedule where you need to go for an 8:00 AM class, come back to the hostel, and return for a 2:00 PM practical, you are looking at spending a huge chunk of your daily feeding allowance just on transport. The bitter truth is that students are now actively trading their nutrition for transport. You find yourself choosing between buying a proper meal or paying a Keke driver so you don’t miss a continuous assessment test.
The worst part of this situation is the mental and physical stress it leaves on students. Because the money from home cannot keep up with these sudden price changes, a vast majority of undergraduates have resorted to trekking. Walk along the campus roads under the scorching Delta sun or during the heavy June downpours, and you will see lines of exhausted students walking long distances. By the time you finally arrive at the lecture theater after a thirty-minute trek, you are dripping with sweat, completely worn out, and mentally checked out. How is a student supposed to digest complex topics like communication theories, graphics, or research methods when their feet are throbbing from trekking?
What pains me the most is the apparent silence of the Student Union Governments (SUG) and the university authorities across the state. It seems everyone is just watching the local transport unions dictate prices as they like, using the national fuel situation as an excuse to exploit vulnerable students. Yes, fuel is expensive, but students do not earn salaries. We are a dependent population.
Our institutions cannot claim to support academic excellence when the basic access to the classrooms is blocked by financial extortion. The school managements need to immediately intervene by partnering with private transport firms to provide heavily subsidized mass transit buses for students. We need dedicated campus shuttles that have a fixed, unchangeable price strictly for anyone holding a valid student ID card.
At the end of the day, getting an education shouldn’t feel like a punishment. We are already battling with the high cost of textbooks, house rent, and food prices. Adding an unregulated, chaotic transportation system to the mix is pushing the average Delta student to a breaking point. It is time for the authorities to look beyond the administrative offices and see the suffering on the campus roads. We want to learn, but the system must make it possible for us to actually get to the classroom first.
Opinion Article by Oyibo Perpetual, a 200 Level Student of Journalism and Media Studies, Delta State University, Abraka
