Transportation has been a problem for a while now on campus. For as long as I can remember and I’m in my 3rd year the situation has been the same on and off campus. The beautiful environment, the amazing lawns and peaceful co-existence among the students makes FUNAAB a lovely school but the transport system is really awful.
The two sets of accommodation available for students on and off campus cause most of the issue. The majority of students stay off campus due to the limited spaces available in the dorms. We have three places where buses and cars drop students living outside campus: Camp,Obantoko and Gate. Gate is within walking distance and Campites, as they are often called, have special buses called FUNABOT that take a large amount of students, and shuttle buses are available for them.
It’s the students going towards Obantoko that are largely affected by this problem. Our problem is quite simple: We have a very large population of students staying at Obantoko and very few cars or buses to move them. When you get to the car park, or should I say coliseum, you’ll always find able and ready ‘gladiators’ to either fight or shove their way into a bus. This is highly tiring and unacceptable. Walking around school is stressful enough, not to mention the long hours of classes, and I would very much prefer to not spend extra hours of my time as General Maximums fighting for a ride home. Guys and girls, popular or not, have to hustle for the available cabs if they want to go home early.
The other places I mentioned don’t suffer as much as we do. School management provided a very big bus to carry them to their bus stops at subsidized prices, and there are also small shuttle buses for them, too. It’s a big surprise that they have more buses than we do considering the fact that Obantoko is a lot further into town and definitely not a walkable distance.
We only experience this issue severely when we want to leave school, but it’s not as bad when you want to come into school. Even then, you have to wake up early to meet the bus at the bus stop. How can we be effective if we have to wake up way too early and get back way too late with bruises from numerous shoves?
After much thought and consultations, I created three simple proposals to solve the problem:
1) Slash some of the buses going to camp and Gate and move them over to the Obantoko section, especially the big FUNABOT buses. It shouldn’t be a debate-they have two means of getting out and we only have one.
2) The Students’ Union should make proposals to private individuals around looking for new investment. They’ll provide the buses, and the school or Students’ union don’t need to spend a lot of money.
3) The school management has already started this step and I must commend them for it. I call it the “Get In Line” Act. On random days the security officials ensure that we form a queue and enter the bus by turn. I think it should no longer be a random act, but a constant occurrence.