Twenty sets of equipment amounting to over 81 million naira, have been procured for the department of Civil and water resources engineering in the University of Maiduguri, Borno state.
The gesture, which came from the State Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, is geared at ensuring that the department scaled through its forthcoming accreditation process.
The department, it would be recalled, recently failed to pass through the process when the body assigned with the responsibility of accrediting universities programmes visited the institution.
The equipment, as noticed by The Trumpet, was yesterday presented to the institution by the Commissioner for Higher Education, Science, Technology And Innovation, Dr Babagana Malumbe Mustapha.
He explained that the Governor procured the equipment amounting to about 81 million naira at the request of the University after the department failed to scamle through accreditation.
According to him, “this came as a result of a request from the University to the Executive Governor of Borno state when the department of civil and water resources engineering lost accreditation in the last accreditation exercise,” Malumbe said.
“And I can remember what his Excellency said then, we cannot afford to be in government and a department in our own faculty will lose accreditation. That’s when he immediately directed the ministry to ensure that we procure the equipment.”
The Commissioner also observed that a greater percentage of the University students are indigenes of Borno state and as a professor who knows the importance of education, hence the prompt support to the University.
He further explained that issues of changes in monetary exchange policy hindered the procurement of the equipment on time.
The Vice-Chancellor, University of Maiduguri, Professor Aliyu Shugaba, who received the equipment cannot hide his admiration and appreciation for Governor Babagana Umara Zulum.
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“On a very happy note, I stand here on behalf of the University of Maiduguri and faculty of engineering to receive these highly valued equipment that are necessary for teaching and research in the whole faculty of engineering, not only civil engineering.”
He said that right from the time the accreditation results came out and it was said that the faculty had been denied accreditation, Zulum called him and asked, “is it true that the department of civil and water resources engineering was denied accreditation? I said yes. He said, “Can we please meet?” Shugaba revealed.
He said that during their meeting, when he listed the reasons for losing the accreditation, some of which are lack of the types of equipment, Zulum promptly invited the Commissioner and facilitated the procurement of the equipment.
The equipment noticed to have been handed over to the citadel of learning are, Triaxial Testing Machine with complete accessories, California Bearing Ratio (CBR), High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Marshall Testing Machine, Direct Shear box Machine with complete accessories, HI-target V9o Phe Dual frequency GNSS/RTK system with complete accessories, among others.
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