UniAbuja Crisis: Reps intervene, order probe

By Emman Ovuakporie

ABUJA-MEMBERS of the House of  Representatives Wednesday mandated the committee on Education to probe the on-going crisis in University of Abuja that has brought academic activities to a standstill for sometime now.

The committee was also directed to conclude its findings and report back to the House within one week.

The motion which was sponsored by Hon Toby Okechukwu representing Aninri/Oji River Federal Constituency in Enugu state stated that: “On Monday, February 18, 2013, the students of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Abuja, Federal Capital Territory for the third time, disrupted the institution’s semester examinations scheduled to commence on the same day.”

Okechukwu explained that the second semester examination earlier scheduled to commence on February 11, 2013 was also disrupted by a group of persons described as students of the same Faculty of Engineering of the institution.

The lawmaker said “the protesting Engineering students have defied every security means adopted to keep them out of the school premises forced their way into the University Campus in Gwagwalada and chased away other students who were already seated for the examination.

“Since the Federal Government withdrew the accreditation of about four (4) faculties in the university, the other three (3) faculties have so far been granted partial accreditation with the exception of the Faculty of Engineering hence the protest by students of the faculty.”

Okechukwu told his colleagues that “most of the protesters have spent no less than seven (7) years in the university, completed the curriculum for the award of degrees but have not been graduated for reasons of non accreditation of the faculty.”

He stressed that “failure to adequately address the plights of the protesting students might expose the University to an avoidable upheaval and impair the future of our children. If no lasting measure is taken to curtail the cause of the protest, same will lead to a breakdown of law and order in the only federal university in the Federal Capital Territory.”