The acting chairman, Inter- ministerial Committee on Campus Safety from National Universities Commission( NUC), Prof Adebisi Balogun, has described the destruction of property at the University of Uyo during last week’s students riot as enormous and stressed that it was beyond the increment of transport fare from N100 to N2000. Addressing newsmen yesterday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, after an on the spot assessments of burnt properties and vandalised school buildings, he said that, “the damage is really extensive”. “Let me say this, this university had existed since 1991. We have never experienced this type of carnage that has been unleashed on the university and therefore, a lot of things must have gone wrong. Damage Done At UNIUYO Enormous – NUC “We don’t want to pre-empt any investigation but definitely we cannot say because of N100 that a whole campus is burnt down, no, there is more that meet the eye, until investigation is concluded. “I only want to plead with Nigerian students that this days, whether you carry out demonstration leading to loss of live or property, there is nothing that should warrant the burning of university; I thought in the Nigerian universities, we have overgrown the burning and the killing of students within the Nigerian university. Most students unions in the country’s universities imbibe the culture of dialogue and talking to management, if there is nothing behind this dastardly act, something has to be done because one cannot understand why because of N100 they have to destroy everything in the school,” he said. He said investigation was ongoing to unravel those behind this unwholesome act and revealed that the university management had also set up their own investigation. Earlier, the vice chancellor of the University of Uyo, Prof Comfort Ekpo, told journalists that, all necessary arrangement has been concluded between the students and the school management on the fare and those to operate the buses between the two campuses, wondering what went wrong with the students to have unleased such destruction in the school. On the academic records destroyed, she said the records would be retrieved from faculties that sent them to her office. “My office being burnt does not mean that I don’t have records; the records come from the faculties, we can build them up again”, she reassured. She debunked the insulations that the management did not dialogue with the students, stressing that, the dean, students’ affairs, the director of transport and the chief security officer of the school were dialoguing with them until the matter got out of hand after they thought the students had accepted management’s explanations
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 04:50:38 +0000