Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Professor Henry Edeoga, has appealed to the management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to speed up the completion of the 522-bed hostel it is building for students of the university.
The appeal was contained in a statement issued by Head, Corporate Affairs, NDDC, Mr Ibitoye Abosede, and made available to Campusbeats in Port Harcourt, on Sunday.
The vice chancellor, who spoke when the commission’s top officials recently went on inspection tour of the hostel, said the appeal became necessary because the students of the institution were threatening to move into the hostel, which is still receiving finishing touches.
Professor Edeoga said the university, expecting that the hostel would be ready for hand over late last year, had admitted 6,000 students on the assumption that they would be fully accommodated.
“The students have been on my neck over the accommodation problem on campus. They even threatened to pack into the hostel, even as the remaining work on the building is going on,” he said.
He, however, thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for directing the NDDC management to urgently complete ongoing projects before embarking on new ones, noting that university hostel projects deserve to be given priority.
He also gave kudos to the NDDC Managing Director, Sir Bassey Dan-Abia, for coming personally to supervise the project to facilitate its completion in the shortest possible time.
Responding, the NDDC managing director said the commission placed emphasis on the 19 prototype hostels it was building in universities across the Niger Delta region.
He said all agencies of government have a responsibility to ensure that the development projects being undertaken by the Federal Government are fully realised.
“The president has directed us to complete all ongoing projects and we intend to comply strictly with this directive. Unfortunately, we do not have enough funds to complete all the projects at the same time. So, we need to prioritize in carrying out our mandate,” he said.
Dan-Abia assured the vice chancellor that the contractor handling the project would be funded adequately to ensure that the work on the hostel is completed as quickly as possible.
He said, “university hostel projects are very dear to us,” noting that NDDC had completed and handed over similar hostels in institutions such as the Imo State University, Federal University of Science and Technology, Owerri, University of Benin and the Delta State University, Abraka.