Category: Campus Life

TO ensure information gap between students and staff of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) is bridged, some students have floated a magazine, Campus Light. The old Senate chamber, where the magazine was unveiled, was filled to capacity with students and members of the staff of the university.

The eight-page journal is being edited by Emmanuel Shebbs, who is also the publisher. The final year student of Political Science said: “The innovation is a manifestation of a vision borne so long to promote peaceful and cordial relationship between students and management of the university.”

Emmanuel, who won CAMPUSLIFE award last year, said: “This magazine, which is founded to promote the UNICAL students, has come to stay. I am glad that my dream has come true.”

Unveiling the preview edition of the newspaper, the Chairman of the occasion and Vice Chancellor, Prof James Epoke, represented by Mrs Benita Ikpeme, said the birth of the magazine was a welcome development in the university, adding that the management and student of the university embraced the idea.

Prof Epoke commended the editorial crew, urging them to use the platform to promote peace on the campus. He said the management was always ready to share in the vision of students, who support the development of the school in any capacity.

Speaking at the event, Charles Udenze, who won CAMPUSLIFE Culture Report Award in 2010, urged the crew to improve on the picture quality of the magazine.

The law graduate of UNICAL also suggested a sport page in the journal, which he said would serve the interest of sport lovers in the campus.

On his own part, the Speaker, Students’ Union Government (SUG) parliament, Emmanuel Olayi, congratulated editorial crew urging them to sustain the idea. In his remark, the magazine’s Associate Editor, Isaac Mensah, expressed appreciation to students and staff for attending the event despite their tight academic schedules.

Other dignitaries present at the ceremony included the Dean, Students Affairs Division, Prof Eyong Eyong, represented by Mrs Elizabeth Egbe, Mr. Omini Oden, former Chairman of National Union of Journalists, Cross River State chapel, and former Chief Press Secretary to the Cross River State Government, Mr Iban Orok among others.

It was reminiscent of a day of reckoning for the outgoing leadership of the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN), Lagos State University (LASU) chapter, when it presented its achievements to the members.

The event, which was held in the university’s Central Mosque, also witnessed the swearing in of the new executive.

The members of the incoming executive were screened by the Shu’ra (consultation committee) saddled with the responsibility of conducting a test for the nominated Muslim students across different faculties.

The outgoing Amir, Abdulmojeed Olayinka, 400-Level Mathematics, said he appreciated the members for standing tenaciously to make his team successful.

Abdulmojeed, who urged members to remain united and support the new executives, added: “You supported us because you realised everybody cannot be leaders at the same time, which is why you must also extend your support to the incoming executive.”

The Shu’ra committee, which selected the leaders, comprises Hakeem Adelu, 400-Level Economics Education (Chairman), Nurudeen Emmanuel, 500-Level Law (Secretary) and Ismail Abdulmalik, 400-Level, Industrial Relation and Personnel Management (member) among others.

Hakeem said the assignment to choose the members of the executive was cumbersome but added that the criteria used by the committee to select the members included knowledge of the Qur’an, Hadith, Islamic History, Fiqh, appearance and composure and knowledge of current affairs.

When the members of the news executive were Abdulmojeed was selected as the Amir for another term. Others were Abdulwasi Kewulere, Naibul Amir, Abdulaziz Bakare, General Secretary, Qosim Okeshola, Assistant General Secretary, Musoliudeen Ahmed, Financial Secretary, Abdulganiyy Aminu, Public Relations Officer, Abdul Rasheed Muhammed, Director of Studies, Yekeen Miftaudeen, Asset Management Officer, Abubakr Fashanu, Business Chief, Hammed Kosoko, Welfare Director and Nurudeen Yusuf, Editor-in-Chief.

Lateefah Olupitan, 400-Level Zoology, became the Amirah, Kaothar Bakare, Naibat Amirah, Baseerah Raji, Secretary Sister’s Circle, Fatimah Kassim, PRO, Mariam Arole, Librarian, Zainab Ogunbowale, Treasurer and Mujidat Haroon, Welfare Director (Female).

The crowd draped in black and white native attires trooping to Malabo Square could be mistaken for Dramatic Arts students who were going for rehearsal. However, it was not a drama; the programme was the annual cultural festival of the Community of Tiv Students (CTS) at the University of Calabar.

Tiv is one of the two largest ethnic groups in Benue State in the North Central region of Nigeria.

The event, which was organised to showcase the beauty of the Tiv rich heritage, was graced by lecturers and some elite of the ethnic group in Calabar. They included Prof D.I. Denga, who was the chief host and his wife, Prof Hana Denga, who was spiritual mother of the day.

Others were Chairman of the occasion Lieutenant Commander Aondowase Mnguve; President of Mzoughu TIV, Calabar chapter, Mr Emmanuel Apetagher; a senior lecturer in Sociology department, Dr Judith Otu; CTS Patron Dr Stanislaus Iyorza; Mr Michael Ingoh, Manager of New Nyanya Mass Transit, Calabar branch, Adaa Samuel Aondo and Prince Linus Sulumba, among others.

Mnguve, who spoke in Tiv dialect, emphasised the need for the students to unite and promote their language and cultural heritage wherever they may be.

According to him, Tiv culture is regarded as one of the richest heritage, adding that there is proper transfer of culture from parents to offspring. He said being together at the occasion was a pointer to the fact that Tiv people were always united wherever they were on earth.

He welcomed the lecturers and students who attended the event. He urged them to inculcate the ethnic morals and values in their wards, saying it would make them to remember where they started and think about their future. He stressed that it would be a death penalty if Tiv people did not hold on to their culture and values.

Prof Denga praised the student for turning out for the cultural fiesta. He said the future of the Tiv culture depended on the enthusiasm of the youths to propagate their custom.

In his address, the president of CTS, Joseph Atongo, thanked the participants for celebrating with Tiv people. In UNICAL, he said, Tiv students were known for academic excellence and love for unionism.

“We unite, promote and provide a forum for unity, peace and harmony among TIV students in particular and Nigeria at large,” he said, adding that the students also show equal enthusiasm to enhance welfare and socio-cultural life on the campus.

The feast featured a dancing session to highlight the rich culture of the Tiv people. Students-troupe, dressed to reflect the traditional Tiv style, doled out various dance steps such as Swange dance. The performance moved dignitaries and the students at the event into ecstasy; participants showered mint Naira notes on the traditional dancers.

The students also honour some of the guests including Mnguve, Prof Hana Denga and Dr Out, who were all decorated with Tiv traditional attires.

In Tiv tradition, three-prong iron staffs called anger and brownish leather bags called Kpaabor are used to honour individuals, who contribute to the ethnic’s cause. Mnguve was decorated for his contribution to the development of the Tiv culture in Cross River State.

There was an intermittent shout of Ayatutu Ka Uno, the motto of the Tiv students, as the programme progressed. The students responded Kase.

One of the students, Tersur Gyado, told CAMPUSLIFE that the display of Tiv attire and dance was to educate and entertain students from other ethnic stock.

When asked how Tiv culture enriched the heritage of Nigeria, Joseph said the people had made the country to be proud in a number of ways. “Benue State today can say it is the food basket of the nation because of the hard work of Tiv people to produce various food materials for export and local consumption,” he said.

A post-graduate student of Education Administration and Planning, Terfa Swem, who is an ex-president of the Tiv students, said the ethnic was unique, adding that the black and white attire Tiv people wear signified they were rich both in agriculture and culture. “We are generally kind and generous to people, especially the poor; we sympathise with empathy,” he added.

No fewer than 76 medical doctors took the oath as the College of Medical Sciences, University of Calabar (UNICAL), held its 35th graduation ceremony. The ceremony was held at the UNICAL International Conference Centre and was attended by notable dignitaries.

Declaring the event open, the Provost of the college, Prof Saturday Etuk, congratulated the new medical doctors for surpassing the difficult moments, which he said accompanied their training before graduation. He advised them to see hard work as a good virtue, adding that the sky would be their starting point if they could stick to the guideline of the profession.

The Chairman of the occasion and Vice-Chancellor, Prof James Epoke, noted that the road of the graduates was littered with tension and anxiety but “you have all successfully completed the first phase of training as medical doctors.” He urged them not to betray the confidence reposed in them by involving in unethical practices that would portray institution in bad light.

In a lecture entitled Paradise lost, can it be regained? Prof Emmanuel Ekanem, a Pediatric at the UNICAL Teaching Hospital (UCTH), said ‘paradise’ was gradually being regained with the noticeable improvement in the nation’s health sector indices.

According to the former Chief Medical Director of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UNIUYOTH), the nation’s infant mortality rate, which measures Nigeria’s standard of health services, was 126 per 1,000 live births in 1990; 86 in 2009 but 74.36 in 2012.

According to him, the health indices were open to contention, but he said they showed improvement of the health situation in the country. He noted that for the new medical doctors to be effective players in the regaining ‘paradise’ lost, they must read “good books” that would expand their worldview, treat other members of the health team with utmost respect, believe in the Nigerian project and develop themselves professionally and academically in accordance with the oath they had taken.

Administering the physician oath on the graduates, the Acting Registrar, Medical Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), Dr A.A Udugbaillevbare, noted that the oath-taking placed a moral burden on the graduates to live above board, stressing that they would be held accountable for whatever action they took.

The Chairman, Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Cross River chapter, Dr Ofem Enang, while receiving the new medical doctors, congratulated them for “weathering the storm”. He urged them to stick to the tenets of the profession.

Prof Maurice Asuquo, Dean, Faculty of Clinical Science, advised the medical doctors to study further, saying it would keep them in the know of the best practices in the evidence-based medicine.

One of the graduates, Dr Edidiong Ekang, who was full of appreciation to God, promised to be a good ambassador of his alma mater and the medical profession.

Journalism is a confidence-building profession. It requires practitioners to be able to speak and understand languages since the tool of communication is language. A good journalist must be a master of English languages or be multi-lingual to put it in a more simple way, which ensures effective dissemination of information. In essence, being multi-lingual connotes having a good command of language of communication.

A journalist must be conscious of the fact that his job is useless without the people that form the audience. Therefore, the ability to relate with them without fear must be developed. The skill to convey the message in a way that the audience will perceive exactly what is being disseminated makes one a good communicator.

A journalist should be confident as a public speaker. Print media is not excluded if the practitioners think they don’t need it. A journalist should always be ready to accept and welcome criticism as well ready to face challenges bearing in mind the social task conferred on the profession.

A journalist is a person who deals with people and ready to relate with them. Even at National Youths Corps (NYSC) camp, the moment your colleagues finds out that one is a journalism graduate, they expect him to know everything and inform others.

Since journalists are teachers who teach the public moral by directly or indirectly shaping their perception, they should not be ashamed of speaking before the audience they tend to educates, inform and entertain rather they should be out spoken and they should show readiness and willingness to express their opinion wherever they find themselves.

Conclusively, journalists are taught to see and say in order to inform the people we take pride in serving. Try to refer back to the law of improvement which entails read, read and read say, say and say, write, write, write and write. You will deduce that journalism discourages shyness but encourages confidence to say for others to benefit.

Hauwa’u, 400-Level Mass Communication, BUK

John L. Mason, author and motivational speaker, once said: “Determine what you really want and what God wants for you. This will keep you from chasing butterflies and put you to work digging for diamonds.”

In other words, we need to engage in things that are more productive and helpful to our lives. We all should not take on frivolities. We have limited time, money and resources to invest in anything. But it is the devil’s strategy to make us waste our energy by doing too many things at the same time. He brings distraction into our lives to keep us from being focused on God’s plan for our future.

Focus is the key to success in any area of pursuit. George Bernard Shaw said: “Circumstances for what they are; I don’t believe in circumstance. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

It is true that if we channel our resources to best opportunities, success is inevitable. So we must not let the future take up our thinking through apprehension and worry; we must concentrate on one thing at a time.

Focus your spiritual, mental, emotional and physical energy on the things that is working positively in your career, don’t waste time on the things that are giving you trouble. The more one focuses on situation one can do nothing about, the more frustrated he may become.

Establish your goals for the future and map out your strategies for accomplishing them. Invest your time, energy, passion and attention to that thing that will make your life better. When you focus on the major purpose of your career, you will eventually become an authority.

There is so much movement around us but little progress. There are too many people in too many cars, in too much of a hurry, going too many directions but get nowhere. An author once said: “I can tell you how to get what you want. You’ve just got to keep a thing in view and go for it, and never let your eyes lose focus on the right or left or up down. And looking back is fatal.”

The fastest route to outstanding success is for you to do one thing at a time. Mark Twain quipped: “Behold the fool saith ‘put not all eggs in one basket,’ which is but a manner of saying, scatter your money and saith, put all thine eggs in one basket and watch that basket.”

The situation in our country today is making many people to try their hands on just about anything possible, so they can keep body and souls together. We must, however, keep in mind that there are no outstanding visible achievements when one is Jack of all trades, he becomes master of none. The more complicated you are, the more ineffective you will become.

The person who begins too many things accomplishes too little. Staring accomplishes too little. Starting little all over the place cannot create enough passion in your heart. When diligence is coupled with focus, it builds the fire of desire with the belief that one’s dreams will come to pass.

Now the questions are: what do you want? Where are you going to? What are your goals, your dreams, and your aspirations? What are your objectives? You will realise that nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific. There are many people who want to be everywhere at once and they get to nowhere.

Mabel, 400-Level Information Technology, FUTO

To empower the girl-child to discover her potential through poetry, an ex-Corps member, Taiwo Thompson, asked pupils in his place of primary assignment, the Federal Government Girls’ College, Abaji, Abuja to write a collection of poems. SIKIRU AKINOLA (300-Level Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University) writes.

As an undergraduate of English at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Taiwo Thompson participated in campus politics and within three years, he was elected a member of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC), the legislative arm of the Students’ Union Parliament.

He was also appointed the Secretary-General and chairman of the OAU Students’ Union Election Petition Committee. His contributions to the union and the university earned him many awards.

However, during his national youth service in Abuja, Taiwo developed a strong passion for the girl-child, many of whom, he said, have untapped literary potential. To unleash their literary prowess, he prodded the female pupils of the Federal Government Girls’ College, Abaji, Abuja, to write a collection of poems titled Portrait of a poet as a young girl.

He edited the 58-page book, which is an anthology of the school. It is composed of chapters on love, hope, motivation, patriotism, friendship, death, family, empathy, chaos, experience and contemporary social issues.

Taiwo, who just finished youth service, said the idea came to him last Augustm, after a discussion with a journalist friend. Anthology, Taiwo observed, was the first phase under the Developing the Girl-Child through Literature Initiative, his pet project.

He said: “I approached the Principal with the idea. She emphasised the readiness of the college to financially support any idea targeted at discovering and developing the potential of the girls in the school since such idea is one of the college’s visions.”

The girl-child, he said, are faced with discrimination and violence, adding it is evident inh the way society treats the female child.

“Many of them are forced into marriages at tender ages and scores of them in some parts of the country are not allowed to go beyond the secondary school level while some fall victims of child trafficking and are sold into prostitution,” he quipped.

He posited that the aim of the initiative and its financier was to revive and revolutionise the thinking of the young girls and groom them to be future writers, whose writings would be to ensure a just and balanced society.

Jumoke Verissimo, the author of I am Memory, wrote the foreword of the book: “This is a collection that is, indeed, a portrait of the mind of the young poet’s innocence, the resonating influences of older poets and the social structure. It has a rare intensity that brings emotion fluctuating like a moving ridge, as it conducts a contemplative exuberance on the reader’s mind.”

Taiwo noted that the writers were in their prime of experimentation with individual and collective feelings. “Yet, many of the poems are well written and matured in perspective and diction,” he said, praising the Principal of the school, Mrs N.C. Uzowulu, who he described as “a doting mother who nurtures the lushness of our dreams and waters the greenness of our future.”

In one of the poems Tragic Christmas, by Hannah Anyanwu-Iwu, the Boko Haram onslaught on education and religion was captured. Specifically, the Christmas day bombing in Suleja last year was described. The choice of words encapsulated the place, the country and the victims.

Thompson’s poems are also featured in the book. One of them Don’t Let Them Die was dedicated to the late human right activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The memorial poem was used to praise the man, who, he said, fought conscientiously for an egalitarian society and mobilised his personal resources to educate the indigent, regardless of sex, tribe and religion.

Corps members in Agulu-Awka organised a novelty football match to mentor pupils of the community secondary school. AYODEJI ADESINA (one of them) writes.

TO mentor the pupils of their host community, Corps members serving in Agulu-Awka organised a football match between them and pupils of Community Secondary School, Agulu-Awka, Anambra State last Friday.

The match, which was played immediately after the school closed for the day, attracted indigenes of the community and passers-by, who cheered on the teams.

Dressed in blue jerseys, the Corps members were confident of winning but the pupils did not feel intimidated. Their performance in the first 10 minutes of the game indicated they could carry the day, but the pupils, who were in senior class, changed tactics and turned the game in the their favour after 45 minutes.

The first goal came when one of the Corps members, Ben Collins, pulled a cross to his team mate, Ark Iku, who in turn beat the defenders of the school team, before laying a pass to another player, who kicked the ball into the net. Few minutes later, the Corps members’ team scored the second goal.

The school team, in quick succession, equalised before half-time. The second-half of the game was challenging for the Corps members after they made a “substitution error”. After 90 minutes, the pupils mauled the Corps members six goals to five.

The Corps Liaising Officer (CLO) and the team captain, Daniel Anieten, praised the performance of his team but said his colleagues’ efforts were not good enough to win the match.

Speaking on the rationale behind the novelty football match, the CLO said the match would build an aura of friendliness and sustain the Corps members-students relationship. He also praised the school management for providing materials for the pupils to play the match.

“The match is to improve the relationship between us and the students beyond the classroom. We want students who are brilliant, disciplined and physically-fit to represent this community and Nigeria in several competitions”. A Batch B Corps member, John Salemu, said the pupils did well and deserved the victory.

Top striker for the school team Stanley Urbondoro said it was the team’s goalkeeper that should be praised for their victory.

A professor of French, Valentine Obinna, has delivered the 10th Inaugural lecture of the Imo State University (IMSU).

Prof Obinna spoke on the topic Communication Matters: Language in literal and literary concatenation, beyond the French eye. The ceremony was held at the university auditorium.

The occasion started when the Vice-Chancellor, Prof B.E. Nwoke, led a procession of lecturers including the Registrar, Bursar, Chief Librarian, Deans of Faculties and professors to the hall.

Prof Obinna, during the lecture, differentiated communication matters as a noun and as a verb. He said as a noun, it could be re-arranged as matters of or in communication. But as a verb, he said the phrase could be used in action sense. He said it brings out the idea of “it matters to communicate”. He explained the literal language.

Prof Obinna said: “A professor is not really smarter than others; he just has his ignorance better organised.” Professor Obinna said the word concatenation in literal language suggested “the more you look, the less you see” but in the literary concept, it amounts to “the more you look, the more you see.”

Prof Obinna concluded the lecture with story of a man, who “talks like a professor, walks like a professor, dresses like a professor and behaves like a professor and everybody sees him as a professor”.

Prof Jasper Onuekwusi, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, presented a portrait of the lecturer designed by the faculty staff. He said out of the 10 inaugural lectures delivered in the university, the faculty lecturers delivered four.

Mr. Augustine Emela, a lecturer of the English and Literary Studies department, described the lecture as an outstanding academic exercise.