SIR: Reading through the “Letter to the Editor” with the above title, in The Nation of Friday, February 23, one could imagine that the writer, Sunday Adole Jonah, supposedly an academic, shares the concern of all well-meaning people who are worried that Benue State University, Makurdi was forced to suspend, on Friday, February 16, second semester examinations of the 2016/2017 Academic session.
However, if he were well abreast with issues surrounding the “examinations impasse”, he would have been more circumspect in making the innuendo and blanket indictment of former governors George Akume and Gabriel Suswam as well as incumbent Governor Samuel Ortom the way he did.
For Benue State University, the duo of Akume and Suswam, during their tenure as visitor, gave the institution the needed support just like incumbent Governor Samuel Ortom is also doing.
While former Governor Akume, for instance, started the university’s college of health sciences, his successor, Suswam, completed the Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) which enabled students of the college to advance to their clinical classes. The incumbent governor, Ortom, since becoming governor in 2015, has ensured that accreditation issues of the medical college are treated with despatch and this has resulted to the graduation of over 150 medical doctors from the college, since then.
It may interest Adole to know that the issues which resulted to the current closure of the university have been largely caused by the students themselves, either out of ignorance or wilful refusal to conform to university regulations.
On discovering that some students of the university have been undergoing their studies without proper registration of their courses, the present management of the institution, led by Professor Msugh Moses Kembe, on assumption of office in November 2015, resolved to change the old way of doing things. The idea is to enforce compulsory registration of courses, especially now that the exercise does not end with filling of hard copies of registration forms but also digital registration to ease marking and processing of examinations.
So, to simplify the matter, Benue State University has about 25, 282 undergraduate students. At the moment, 13,082 of these students are fully registered and have paid all their student charges while 6562 of these have paid their student charges but are not registered. Only 5638 students have neither paid their student charges nor registered.
It is pertinent to bring it to the knowledge of all that at the parents/ stakeholders’ forum convened by the university management on Wednesday, February 21, the forum endorsed the suspension of the examinations until March 5. It was further agreed that students who have not paid their sundry charges and those who have paid but have not registered should use this period to complete their registration. For students who may not be able to meet the financial responsibilities within this period, their parents/guardians could come forward and submit an undertaking for such wards to write the examinations.
- Tser Vanger, Terzungwe, ANIPR,
Principal Assistant Registrar (Information &Public Relations),
Benue State University, Makurdi.
