SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, (THEWILL) – A grand plot to relocate the Engineering Faculty of the Delta State University (DELSU) located at Oleh, headquarters of Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, is underway, THEWILL has learnt.
Dependable sources told THEWILL that the institution is being frustrated from meeting its full accreditation programme by some ‘forces’ who want the campus relocated from the Isoko community.
Investigations revealed that the institution’s campus is in the verge of being relocated as the university could no longer meet its admission criteria following poor infrastructural development at the campus which also hosts the Law Faculty of the institution.
A senior lecturer of the Engineering Faculty, who craved anonymity, told THEWILL that the university campus is suffering and is being denied of infrastructure that could help it meet the accreditation programme.
The source said projects meant to standardise the university campus and help the faculty get its accreditation are abandoned by the state government.
The lecturer disclosed that the Engineering Faculty has not admitted students for the past two sessions as a result of non-accreditation due to the inability of the Uduaghan’s led government to meet up with the infrastructural development of the institution which is one of the requirements for accreditation.
A source close to the Provost of the Oleh campus, Prof Chinedum Mordi, who simply gave his name as Chukwuemeka said that the university was failing in its accreditation programme at a time Governor Uduaghan was equipping and donating edifice for another institution, the University of Nigeria, Nzuka in Enugu State.
According to him, “the Engineering Faculty lacks Professors and Ph.D holders who can lecture in the faculty. It is an engineering faculty that has no workshops, no lecture halls, no furnished staff offices, and no electricity.”
He added that “the law faculty has no lecture halls, it has a gloried secondary school library, no good offices and above all is short of Ph.D holders and other senior lecturers.
“As at today, the Oleh campus has a total of 203 casual staff, including lecturers in the institution,” he said.
The source alleged that there is a grand plot to relocate the university campus from Isokoland back to the main campus in Abraka, saying the governor and the DELSU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eric Arubayi, are aware of the development.
THEWILL learnt that the Provost of the Oleh campus who has been clamouring for the upgrading of the university campus through series of correspondence to the governor’s Special Adviser on Labour Matters had suddenly become mute ostensibly not to jeopardise his chances of becoming the next Vice Chacellor of the institution.
“These persons want the Oleh campus relocated back to Abraka hence they are frustrating the university campus for being developed. Did you listen to the VC’s speech during the last convocation ceremony where he counted several projects carried out in the University through the institution’s Internal Generated Revenue, (IGR)? Was any project sited at the Oleh campus? The answer is capital No!.
“They don’t want the Oleh Campus Engineering Faculty accredited”, the source said.
“Right now hopes of students studying in the Engineering Faculty have been dashed following the inability of the state government to develop the institution.”
The source said most of the infrastructure at the university campus were done through the efforts of Isoko sons and daughters who had always donated to the growth and development of the institution.
Our source said a typical example of efforts by the Isoko people to develop the university campus was the recent donation of a giant generating plant to the Engineering Faculty by the Secretary to the State Government, (SSG), Comrade Ovuozourie Macaulay, who hails from Isoko, adding however that since the donation, the institution’s authority for reason yet to be fathomed has refused to unveil the plant for use.
Reliable source told THEWILL that the leadership of Oleh Kingdom and the Isoko Development Union (IDU)-led by former military administrator, Major-General Paul Ufuoma Omu,(rtd), is not happy with the development and is said to be making efforts to reach the authorities over the state of the campus.
Former President of Isoko Development Union (IDU) High-Chief Iduh Amadhe confirmed this development at the weekend in Oleh when he raised the alarm at a public function that the university campus is on the verge of being relocated from Isokoland because of its inability to meet the National University Commission (NUC) accreditation criteria.
