The Nation Newspaper

Tag: STUDENT

  • Bank vehicle kills student

    Bank vehicle kills student

    The University of Ibadan (UI) community was, last Monday, thrown into mourning when the driver of a new generation bank crushed one of the institution’s students.

    Deborah Asha Odunayo, 200-Level Guidance and Counselling, left the campus after reading in preparation for her next exam.

    The university is conducting its first semester examination.

    CAMPUSLIFE gathered that the late Deborah was crushed by the vehicle as she tried to cross the Ojoo road to buy some food items.

    Our correspodents learnt that the late student was immediately rushed her to a hospital but gave up the ghost a few hours later.

    This incident shocked students when the news hit the campus. According to the deceased’s close friend, Hiqmat Abdulsalam, Deborah left the campus to buy food stuffs after she wrote her first paper but she was hit by the vehicle while she was trying to buy the items. Hiqmat said she was yet to believe her close friend was dead.

    Yomi Alli, 200-Level Political Science and the late Deborah’s secondary school classmate at International School Ibadan, described the deceased as easygoing. He added she would be greatly missed.

    Fadekemi Folarin, 100-Level Guidance and Counselling, said the late Deborah never looked down on people, which was why she moved close to the deceased.

    The late Deborah, 20, was said to be dreaming to become a Public Relations consultant.

  • Suspended student wins union presidency

    Suspended student wins union presidency

    Six years ago, Chris Taiwo was placed on suspension by the authorities of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, after he lost bid to be elected as president of the Students’ Union Government (SUG).

    During the election held last week, Chris emerged leader of the union. In the build up to the poll, aspirants thronged the campus and off-campus hostels with their supporters sharing posters to canvass for votes. They also stationed billboards at strategic places for awareness.

    The election was held simultaneously in the six faculties on the Ogbomoso campus and also at the College of Health Sciences, Osogbo. Security personnel including Man O’ War and cadets were drafted to maintain peace during the process. Red Cross officials and LAUTECH Road Safety Corps were on hand to ensure smooth process.

    To ensure the best got elected, the Union of Campus Journalists organised a debate for the aspirants. On the election day, members of the electoral commission with Vice-Chancellor, Prof Sulaiman Gbadegesin, moved round the campus to monitor the election.

    The process was marred by low turnout of students. When the election ended, collation exercise could not follow immediately because ballot boxes were being transported from Osogbo. Students and observers besieged the convocation ground, the venue of the collation.

    Around 11:30 pm in the evening, the results were announced.

    Chris was returned as the president-elect. In 2007, he was suspended because of the controversy that trailed his defeat in union election. He, however, wrote another entrance exam and was re-admitted into his former department.

    He also lost the union election last session but re-contested and won last week. As his name was announced as the winner, his supporters shouted “Abraham Lincoln of LAUTECH”.

    Declaring the winner, the chairman of the electoral commission, Dr Siyanbade Adewale, said Chris garnered 1,992 votes to defeat his close rival, Bolanle Sherrifdeen, who polled 1,473 votes.

    Others elected include Calista Atanye, Vice-President 1, Emmanuel Fadeni, Vice-President II, Sheriffdeen Hamzat, General Secretary, Adeboye Kuta, Assistant General Secretary, Abdulrasheed Adewale, Financial Secretary, Kayode Alabi, Public Relations Officer, Ahmed Kolawole, Welfare Director, Ayoola Badmus, Sports Director and Abayomi Adams, Social Director.

    The elected officials have since been sworn in. Chris pledged not to renege on his campaign promises.

     

  • ‘Poisoned’ student battles to live

    Monday Oluwafemi, a 27-year-old student of Political Science at the College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti, is dying.

    His survival depends on the readiness of sympathetic Nigerians to bail him out of his present predicament.

    According to a source, Monday mistakenly took a substance suspected to be poison about a year ago and has since been moving in and out of hospitals.

    He underwent his first surgical operation on his stomach late last year at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife, Osun State.

    A pipe through which he could feed was fixed on him. Now, he can’t eat with his mouth.

    So far, about N250,000 was said to have been expended on him by his poor family. Now, his case requires another operation to enable him regain normal eating process.

    The victim, an indigene of Ode-Aye in Okitipupa Local Government area of Ondo State, told The Nation that he lost his father along time ago. His mother is a peasant farmer.

    Now, medical findings reveal that it will require about N1 million to make him survive his ordeal. Where such money would come from is the headache of his family now. Thus, the family is plead seeks financial assistance from kind-hearted Nigerians to rescue him from untimely death. The victim and his guardian gave their phone numbers as 07035403364 and 08063127921.

  • Villagers protest as truck kills student

    Residents of Agan toll gate, a Makurdi suburb located on the Makurdi-Lafia Highway yesterday protested after a truck driver knocked down and killed a 24-year-old student,

    who lived in the community.

    A source said the driver abandoned the vehicle

    after the accident and fled into the bush.

    The villagers reportedly mobilised and blocked the highway, preventing vehicles from passing through the road, which links the North with the Eastern part of the country.

    There was a traffic gridlock. Street urchins capitalised on the situation to extort money from travellers.

    Police later dispersed the protesters and restored peace.

     

     

     

     

  • Don’t teach my student nonsense

    February was really bad for some of us. For me, certain things came up that shook my stoic deportment to life. I had borne the pains and anguish for some time before I decided to reach out to a dear friend on phone in the middle of the night. I’m glad I made that call. I was able to pore out my heart and at the end of the early morning, I was much better.

    When I thought mine was the heaviest burden to carry, one of my mentors/father made a phone call to me that I should see him. As soon as I got there, he begged that as part of my work schedules for him, he needed me to teach him the basic use of the computer. I was surprised at that request. This is one individual who wouldn’t care about sending SMS let alone learn the use of the computer. Why the sudden interest? I needed to know. Not one to display emotions, he told me that a large sum of money (enough to buy me a clean house in a good part of Abuja) had been transferred from his account without his knowledge. The money has been traced to Hong Kong and he’s hopeful they nab the people who did it.

    While investigations are going on, he would like to dedicate just one hour per day to teaching him how to use commands on the computer so he would begin to open his emails himself, do internet banking and generally be literate enough to ensure that no one else has his passwords.

    I couldn’t refuse that demand. Yet, I couldn’t say that yes, not only do I have more knowledge of the computer than an average user (after all, I’m an author who has written all my published books straight from my laptop) I actually learnt to use the computer on my own. I didn’t’;t go to any computer school for that. Years of practice and on-the job efforts got me this far and made me a pro. I prayed that he wouldn’t ask me to teach him how to recognize your letters without looking at the keyboard – those are things they teach you in computer schools. Asking him to go to a computer school would mean special schools that open from 7.00pm to 8.00 would need to be located for him. (All big people are always on the move and 9.00pm is still day time for a lot of them).

    Lo and behold, Baba wanted to teach him what I had prayed he wouldn’t ask me to – recognizing letter without looking at the keyboard. Up till now, I don’t know how I managed to take his mind off that. What I know is that today, after just four days of teacher/student arguments, he is able to boot his computer, type words and start new paragraphs, highlight letter to increase font sizes, close files and a few other things. I have to sometimes remind him of commands like ‘Enter’, ‘Backspace’and ‘Control’, but we’re getting there.

    The highlight of the lesson is that since Baba has never been alone with a woman since the years I’ve known him the lessons are done in the presence of his PA and his son. Baba obviously doesn’t understand why these young men laugh when I say things like , ‘open’, ‘close’, ‘enter’, ‘control’, ‘go down’ and ‘shift’. As they are idle when we are busy, their minds must be playing some silly tricks and they are enjoying it.

    As for me, I pray I’m able to help Baba computer literate before the end of March and while I laugh at the games of these young men, I pray they don’t end up teaching Baba nonsense.

  • ‘We subsidise every student up to 30%’

    Prof Bashir Raji assumed duties as the second Vice-Chancellor of the Fountain University Osogbo (FUO), last December. In this interview with KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE, he speaks on shortage of lecturers and funding support for private universities.

     

    Tell us about Fountain University?

    Fountain University Osogbo (FUO), commenced academic activities on January 14, 2008 having secured its operating licence in 2007. We commenced activities in two colleges: Natural and Applied Sciences and Management and Social Sciences. That is the first phase – although technically we should have commenced the second phase of the master plan. Hopefully we are commencing it by October this year with two colleges, Arts and Education. We know we still have to invite NUC for resource visitation which we hope will be positive. Currently, we run 11 programmes and we have NUC accreditation for them. We don’t have any of our programmes denied accreditation. We have 63 per cent of our programmes with full accreditation and 37 per cent with interim accreditation.

    You are graduating your second set next week?

    The maiden convocation took place in September 2011 and we are planning to have our second convocation on February 28, 2013. At the convocation, we are awarding first degrees to 128 students, out of which 12 came out with first class, while 39 came out second class upper division. Fifty-one of them had second class lower division while 15 earned third class. We are also going to honour three eminent Nigerians with honorary doctoral degrees. They are: Alhaji Abdulatef Olasupo, the chair of the BOT of NASFAT, and an accomplished banker who has contributed immensely to the course of islam. We are honouring him with Doctor of Banking (honoris causa). The second recipient is Alhaji Suleiman Adegunwa, a renowned philanthropist and industrialist who has contributed immensely to the course of Islam and has also donated to several institutions in Nigeria. He will also be honoured with doctor of Business Administration. The third is Hajia Mohammed Namadi Sambo, wife of the Vice President of Nigeria. She is a philanthropist and through her project, she has touched several lives in Kaduna state and empowered youths and women and also contributed immensely to the course of Islam.

    The Needs Assessment Committee of Nigerian University revealed a shortage of qualified lecturers in Nigeria. How many lecturers do you have?

    Shortage of PhD holders is a general problem and we are not excluded from it. What we have done in Fountain is to put in place a staff development programme where all workers with Masters Degree are encouraged to undertake their PhD within a minimum of three years through scholarship. We pay for their tution just to encourage them. We also rely on sabbatical and adjunct staff from other universities to boost the quality of our faculty.

    Private education being funded by the government…is it realistic?

    Even in federal universities, the Federal Government is saying they should get as much as 30 per cent of their funding from Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR). So if you are demanding from the federal universities to increase their IGR, I feel it is wrong for the Federal Government to abandon private and community-based universities without any subvention because education is a social service that is supposed to be guaranteed by the government of the nation to every citizen.

    A community university like ours owned by NASFAT subsidises students’ education. We charge N350, 000 inclusive of accommodation across any course. The Federal Government in their analysis said they subsidise every student to the tune of N500,000 a year and that is what they pay to the universities. If we are charging N350,000 that means we are subsidising every student that comes to the university to the tune of N150,000. I think the federal government as the custodian of social services in the country should subsidise the community based university. We are not for profit. It is a community-based university, it is not owned by individuals.

    There is this belief that faith-based universities collect money from members to set up a school and over 90 per cent of them cannot afford the school. What measures is the school putting in place to cushion the financial pressure on members?

    I am aware that we made a proposal to NASFAT members that they can give a 50 per cent scholarship to wards of NASFAT members who decide to come to Fountain University. From our interactions, they are actually working along that line. It cannot be 100 per cent free but like a 50 per cent scholarship.

    What are your plans to improve the university?

    One area we are focusing our attention seriously is the use of ICT in teaching, research and administration. We are upgrading our website and introducing the e-portal system for staff and students. We found that in most universities the portal is used for students’ registration. We are trying to carry it further by introducing a portal for members of staff of the Registry and Bursary that you can have complete e-governance.

     

     

     

  • Student nabbed for girlfriend’s murder

    Police in Niger State have begun investigation to unravel the circumstance behind the death of a young lady, whose head was allegedly chopped off by a student of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUT MINNA).

    The suspect, Godwin Idoko, a 500-Level student, was arrested for the murder of the lady, who was said to be his girlfriend.

    The deceased name was simply given as Hannatu. The incident happened in Godwin’s Rafin Nyashi residence, located at Bosso area in Minna.

    Some of the neighbours, who spoke to CAMPUSLIFE, said Godwin hosted the deceased for three days without allowing the girl to go outside the building. They, however, became suspicious when they heard the scream of the girl, after which the suspect dashed out of his room.

    They further said that after some minutes when they did not see the girl coming out, the door to Godwin’s room was forcefully opened only to find the headless body of Hannatu in a pool of blood. Sources said the manner the head was severed showed the suspect may have wanted to use the victim for ritual purpose.

    Godwin was immediately arrested by the police. When contacted, the Niger State Police Public Relations Officer, Pius Edobor, confirmed the incident. He said, although the suspect had confessed to the crime, but the command was yet to establish the motive behind the crime.

    Edobor said: “I don’t want to preempt the ongoing investigations; we are looking into many angles to the crime. Investigations will reveal if the suspect killed the girl for ritual purpose or whatever circumstances that led to the act.” He said the head and the body had been moved to the general hospital mortuary.

     

  • Student wins plane in MTN promo

    A 27-year old student of the College of Health Science and Technology, Rivers State, Ebube Essien-Garricks, has emerged the winner of a Cessna 182T aircraft in the MTN Ultimate Wonder promo.

    MTN’s Chief Marketing Officer Larry Annetts said: “When we came out with the promo, many doubted us but today we have an ultimate winner, who will go home with the promised Cessna 182T aeroplane.

    “The take-home for us here is that MTN is committed towards enriching the lives of its consumers. When we say we will do something, you can be sure that we don’t renege on our promises.“

    Ebube, who was notified via a phone call, opted for the cash value of the plane, which is N64 million.

    She said: “I am short of words, there is no word to describe what I feel right now.

    “It is almost as if it is a dream but I know that nothing can be more real than what I am feeling right now.

    “This must be the best Christmas gift ever. It is truly wonderful.”

     

  • Drama as student puts to bed in hostel

    How did a student give birth in a hostel? This was the question many asked when a student delivered a seven months old pregnancy last week at the Federal Polytechnic, Oko. When students got to know what was happening, they rushed to the hostel to confirm the “unbelievable story”.

    The mother of the baby is an ND I student in the School of Business.

    A student in HND II, who claimed to have witnessed the delivery, told CAMPUSLIFE: “I was in my room when I heard the scream of students from other rooms. I ran out to know what was going on. When I got to the room, I was surprised with what I saw. The placenta was dangling and the baby was crying which shows that the girl was standing while delivering the baby.”

    The source said the mother of the baby confessed to have used a drug to remove the pregnancy but it did not work.

    The source added: “The girl confessed that she took various abortifacients but each time she took the drugs, the foetus refused to go. She admitted to have gone to many places for proper abortion but she was asked to pay between N40,000 and N50,000, which she could not afford. She told us that she went to see a nurse who injected her. She said it was the last medication that actually pushed the pregnancy, resulting to the birth of the premature baby.”

    Another student, who witnessed the incident, explained that when the student arrived from the nurse’s place, she was restless and her roommate suspected something was wrong with her.

    “Her roommate discovered that she was restless and sweating profusely. They asked her what went wrong but she replied she was okay. They left the room only to return to see a baby crying on the floor while other students struggled to separate the placenta,” the student said.

    CAMPUSLIFE gathered that the mother and the baby were immediately taken to Oko Community Hospital. Her family members were reached immediately. When our correspondent got to the hospital, a doctor, who declined to say his name, said the baby had been placed in an incubator.

  • Student kills snake in hostel’s premises

    Student kills snake in hostel’s premises

    Few weeks after the residents of Awolowo Hall in the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) killed snakes around the hostel, another snake has been killed by students around the area. The serpent was killed at the front of Block 7.

    CAMPUSLIFE gathered that the snake which was killed last Thursday had been lurking around the Block 7 lawn where students always spread their clothes for drying. A student, who went to pick his clothes, saw the snake and alerted his colleagues immediately.

    This degenerated into chaos as students ran away from the scene. But a student, Gideon Ogunniran, waited and pursued the snake with plank. He killed the serpent after a about 10 minutes search. It was after this time that other students came around to catch a glance at the dead snake.

    They, however, discovered a lizard being swallowed by the snake before it was killed by Gideon. The students later left the scene for other halls of residence to perform Aro (campus joke) with the dead snake. They laid the dead snake on the pathway to the female hostels to cause fear.

    Speaking to CAMPUSLIFE on the incident, Surajudeen Mutairu, 400-Level English, advised his colleagues to be vigilant.

    It should be recalled that similar incident happened same hall and Adekunle Fajuyi Hall where a snake was found in a room recently.