Co-Habitation among students, poverty or moral decadence

By Bamigboye Blessing Temitope
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We complement each other well”, we love each other. I think that’s what matters. This is a sample of the kind of responses given by male-female co-habiting students when asked why they opt to co-habit with their boyfriends and girlfriends. Undoubtedly, male-female co-habitation has become a main pattern of life among students in Universities and polytechnics across the country. Male-female Co-habitation is a situation whereby a male and female live in an apartment and perform duties as husband and wife with the wife performing the household chores like cooking, cleaning, washing of clothes and of course “the other room functions” and the man performing the roles of the husband and funding the relationship.

Co-habitation, although considered to be immoral has gained ground within the country and has been accepted as way of life that gives the actors less moral burden. Abroad, it is almost considered normal as even University administrations make allowances for co-ed hostels and apartments. Also, western culture is not overly critical of male-female Co-habitation. This is very much unlike African culture where this kind of co-habitation without marriage is frowned upon if not condemned outright. For examples Ibo culture critically condemns any form of co-habitations for lovers that are yet to perform the rituals of marriage. But, today this situation is on the rise within Nigeria and it’s communities and areas around higher institutions of learning are prime hotspots in the practice of the illicit trends. The question that observers have been responsible for the phenomenal growth and popularity of this behavior among youths in higher institutions?.

Nigerian Universities and other higher institutions of learning like polytechnics due to infrastructural decay and deficiencies that have been ravaging our country since early 80s, cannot accommodate all students within their respective campuses. As the Universities and polytechnics give more access to Nigerian youths for higher education, they become overcrowded and over-flown with youths who have weak moral background. Classes are overcrowded, and the few dilapidated hostel accommodation in the institutions cannot accommodate the mammoth crowd of students who gain admission into Nigerian Universities, it became extremely difficult for the institutions to accommodate their students on the campus. Campuses that used to be bubbling became desolate and students fond alternative accommodation around the campuses and of course, an off-campus trend of students accommodation became a blessing to developers and landlords who took the advantage of building hostel accommodations around campuses.  Indeed, some of them shrewd landlords exploiting students who had no alternative to off-campus living.

As such students tend to look for off-campus accommodation that is affordable and nearer to academic environment on the campus. The economic downturn that has become so intensified since early 1990s had made university education very expensive for students. Although students pay less tuition fees they spend so exorbitantly on accommodation. Indigent students therefore do not have other option than to pair and share apartments and rooms. Usually, students tend to pair up in same sex groups: males with males and vice versa. This style of living among students mitigates the burnt of the exorbitant rents they pay on accommodation in university districts. This ingenuity however prepared the ground for male-female co-habitation. In other words, this is the beginning of the paring trend that has led to the illicit phenomenon of Co-habitation which is otherwise known as couple life.

According to Sukanmi Alex a 200level student of a federal university, who emphatically said that “some students tell their parents that they have found someone to pair and share a room with. The parents thinking that the person is the same sex with their Wards, approve the pairing mainly because it will reduce financial burden on them. Some parents, who sometimes suspect foul play and deceit request to speak with their wards roommates, but the wards conveniently allay the suspicion by asking a neighbour to speak with the parents instead”.

This revelation is a reflection of how parents contribute to the popularity of co-habitation phenomenon among Nigerian students in higher institutions. The economic crunch which is biting hard on an average Nigerian has definitely instilled an entrenched many immoral behavior in the Nigerian social fabrics. Average Nigerians struggled to survive by all means, by hook or crook. In their survival strategies they try as much as possible to cut cost and save as much as possible. As a result, parents easily buy into the secret from their wards that they are pairing with the same sex whereas they are actually sharing rooms with their lovers and living like couples.

In some cases, ant parents do not give acquiescence to requests from their wards to pair or share room with any other student. Thus, they give the full rent for a room or apartment in order to make sure their wards are absolutely comfortable and focussed. Still, many of such students go ahead to pair and share rooms with their lovers without the knowledge of their parents. As Biola Christianah a 400 level student of a state University noted “there are many of us whose parents don’t really care about economic angle. Not that they are not rich, but they want the best of their wards. So they hate the idea that their wards wish to share rooms with their friends, and so they give all what is needed to rent a room or even a whole apartment for their wards in order to make sure that the wards do not have disturbance  or unnecessary influence. But most of us fall in love and we ask our boyfriends to move in with us to live like couples. Although, we know it is illicit, and does not really benefit us in any way, yet we prefer such living because we are in love”.

Biola’s revelation is remarkable because it seems to exonerate parents as accomplices of the immoral behaviour among the contemporary students, which is spreading like harmattan wild fire. Can we then conclude that the trend is a result of the youthful exuberance and zest? What is the social implication of the illicit behavior,  what benefit do the so called couples derive from such living and how can it be nipped in the bud?

Undoubtedly, male-female co-habitation is fostering deviance among students. In this form of co-habitation, what usually obtains is that the co-habitants themselves have romantic relations- they are usually boyfriend and girlfriend. Speaking on why he lives together with his girlfriend as a couple Oluwaseun a 500 level of Federal University explained that although they both realise that such co-habitation is somewhat repugnant in the society, they still stay together due to the love and affection they have for each other. According to him, “I love her and I know she loves me too.  We love each other and I think that what matters, besides we save a lot of money by living together. We have more food and money to spend. So, it is a win-win situation for us”.

Many graduated students that spoke with The hope confirmed this claim noted that couple life in school more often end up in sorrow and remorse. According to Alex Ololade, a graduate of a State University in he words “it is unfortunate that when I lived together with my boyfriend in school as husband and wife, we were confidently thinking that it would end up in marriage. But, I must confess that it ended up in sorrow. He graduated a year before me and when he went for service I never heard anything about him contrary to his promise that he would wait anxiously for me to graduate. At a point he was not even picking up my calls. And this was a guy that I spend all what I had to keep while we were in school. I fed him,  I clothed him and I even aborted three pregnancies for him while we were living together. My advice to people doing this is to stop this and parents should go to their wards school regularly to check up on them.

Alex’s revelation seem to point clearly the great loss and depravity associated with this trend. Girls, in particular are at great loss in this unholy matrimony. That do not only feed their so called husbands, they gave them adequate supply of free and illicit sex, thereby losing their dignity and spiritual endowments.

Also, a correspondent who only identified herself as Yewande disclosed that many co-habitants like herself have sex recklessly. She said what they depend on is contraceptives not only condom.

An underground monitoring of many medicine store around off-campus areas has revealed that the most fast selling drugs in these medicine stores is Postinor, a contraceptive for prevention of unnecessary pregnancy. And according to my research not less than 10 girls around University area visited a medicine store within ten minutes, meaning 60 girls buy a dose of Postinor within an hour.

In an interview with a Pharmist she said contraceptives don’t work all the times. There are many times when unsafe sex is inevitable for boys and girls living together for 24 hours throughout three or four months period  in a semester.  And when contraceptives fail, abortion is the next in line of action. This was what Alex mentioned earlier about how she aborted three pregnancies while she lived with her boyfriend as a couple for four years period of undergraduate study. So, as repugnant as it sounds.

Cohabitants engage in this act and the country is definitely indirectly feeling the burnt of this atrocious and deviant act. If abortion is chosen as the way out, one of these three things will happen: the abortion is successful, the abortion is successful but the girl’s womb is irreparably damaged and can no longer hold a child or the abortion fails and girl loses her life.  The odds for a successful abortion without complications is very slim. Besides the irreparable damage that might blight the lives of girls who through this horrendous way of life the stain or pressure it gives to the health infrastructure in our society cannot be overemphasized. The sorrow it causes families is enormous. There is no doubt that the act which students in higher institutions today take as innocent and fun,  is one of the causes of the alarming rate of divorces in our society. A girl that has aborted two or three pregnancies has a very little chance of further conception by the time she gets married to the real husband. Although,majority of women in this situation know the cause of the plight, but resides and dies within them of life.  Unfortunately, people around them, people that love them will emotionally sympathize with them and run around for them, moving from pillar to post without knowing that the cause of the sorrow and frustration is the immaturity and mindlessness that had propelled the escapade of living with a man for years without holy matrimony.

Even apart from unwanted pregnancies, unsafe sex can also cause a host of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS, Gonorrhea and Staphylococcus. The chances of contracting sexually transmitted diseases are highly and firmly stacked in the favour of one practices unsafe sex. Girls are more at risk because the boy that engage in co-habitation is not likely to be faithful.

Generally, male-female co-habitation is as unsafe as unsafe can be. Even with a few success stories, male-female co-habitation, largely, is very predictable. The fact that both partners feel or even plan to get married in the future does not mean that they will. Neither does it matter if they adequately practice of peaceful coexistence with their future spouse. This does not promise a good marriage. In essence, male-female co-habitation should not be encouraged as the probability of failing both academically and relationship wise is high. It can result to an acute loss of esteem when the relationship breaks. As a result, male-female co-habitation is not healthy mental, academically, psychologically and relationship-wise.

God save our youths.

Bamigboye, Blessing Temitope is a serving Corp member at The hope newspaper.