After the needless storm over accreditation of some courses in the University of Abuja, The League of Democratic Journalists, LDJ, did a comprehensive investigation on the immediate and remote causes of the problem in the institution.
Contrary to the blitz given alleged findings at the institution, we discovered that only one faculty was at the permanent site of the University when the current Vice Chancellor, Prof. Adelabu took over in July 2009. As at the time of conducting the investigation, five faculties have been moved to the University’s permanent site and full academic activities going on.
We also observed that the VC and his team have successfully completed the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine building, Anatomy laboratories, Faculty of Health Science building, lecture rooms, Faculty of Engineering building, Sultan Maccido Centre for Peace and Leadership Training, Faculty of Science and the roofing of the institution’s Convocation Square.
Furthermore, we noted that the current leadership has connected the school’s electricity to the national grid thus making light to be regular, just as bore holes have been sunk in strategic locations of the University making water available for domestic and academic uses.
In same vein, the school library is almost completed, the Faculties of Management science, Social Science ,Centre for Distant Learning and an additional 500 capacity hostel is are under construction.
It is instructive that the current leadership inherited the myriad accreditation problems of the University and had taken steps to address them before the hawks in the Federal ministry of Education threw spanners into the wheel for what The League has seen as purely selfish reasons.
It may interest the world to know that The League found out that until the present leadership came on board, University of Abuja was the proverbial cash-cow for ministry officials as monies meant for development went into private pockets.
Thus, the accreditation problem was just a smokes screen for some people in the Federal Ministry of Education and a presidency official to further an agenda that the VC of UniAbuja must hail from a particular section of the country; and belong to a particular faith. Already a meeting on how to perfect their memo to President Goodluck Jonathan The League learnt, has been scheduled for the 21st May,2012 at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa.
In line with globally acknowledged principles of fair play, justice and the fine principles of democracy, The League implores President Jonathan to disregard whatever untoward counsel on the UniAbuja issue by persons that don’t wish progress in the country educational sector and allow the VC to complete his term. The choice of who becomes Vice Chancellor of the University and indeed, all federal universities should be left entirely in the hands of those in the university community and not some selfish egoistic thin-gods in the Federal Ministry of Education.
We want to warn that attempts to introduce extraneous factors in resolving the University of Abuja problem is capable of breeding discontent and unnecessary distraction that can take development in the institution years back. We repeat, the choice of who becomes the VC of a higher institution must be left to the University system alone. If the popular view that standards have fallen abysmally in the country’s education sector must be taken into consideration, must the nation allow a further dip in the system even while the transformational philosophy of the President Jonathan administration is who?
Akin Orimolade Osedebamen Isibor
Chairman Secretary