Walk into any lecture theatre 10 minutes before a 200 level morning class begins, and you will see something that isn’t on the official university syllabus. In the back rows, notebooks are open, but laptops are also humming. While one student is busy copying down definitions of syntax or media law, the person next to them is frantically replying to a WhatsApp Business message: “Yes boss, delivery to the school gate is by 2:00 PM.”
Driven by an unforgiving economic climate, the modern Nigerian undergraduate has had to become a chameleon. The line between a student and a business owner has completely blurred, turning hostels into warehouses and lecture breaks into board meetings.
This isn’t just about making extra pocket money anymore; for a vast majority, it is about staying in school. With the rising cost of textbooks, accommodation, and daily transportation, the traditional monthly allowance from home has become a distant memory.
Instead of waiting for a credit alert that might never come, students are taking matters into their own hands. Walk through any hostel corridor on a Friday night, and you will see ring lights glowing through windows as students film content for their online thrift stores, bake cakes for weekend birthdays, or edit videos for remote clients.
But this double life comes with a heavy physical and mental price tag. The logistics of running a business while maintaining a good Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is an extreme sport. A student entrepreneur often has to juggle a gruelling 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM lecture schedule, rush to the park to send a delivery parcel to a customer, and then stay up until 3:00 AM studying for a test while packing orders for the next morning. It is a constant, exhausting cycle of trying not to let the business fail, while desperately praying that a lecturer doesn’t announce a pop quiz while you are off-campus attending to a client.
There is something incredibly inspiring about watching a generation refuse to be defeated by financial hardship. The resourcefulness on display in our university communities today is proof that Nigerian youths are not lazy; they are merely adapting to a system that forces them to grow up too fast. As the semester progresses and exam dates draw closer, these student-hustlers will continue to march into the halls with their receipts in one hand and their pens in the other.
They are learning how to make a living before they have even been handed the certificate that says they are qualified to try.
. Oyibo is a student of Journalism and Media Studies, Delta State University, Abraka.
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