UNIPORT - VC EXPRESSES NEED FOR MORE HOSTELS

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Ndowa Lale, has expressed the need for the Federal Government to build more hostels on the university campus.

Lale said this was necessary to avoid a repeat of the ‘Aluu 4’ incident of October 2012 in which hoodlums murdered four students of the university, who were living in hostels outside the institution’s campus.

The vice chancellor spoke with newsmen in Port Harcourt on Monday during the handover of 15 rehabilitated students’ hostels and nine lecture halls to the university by contractors handling the project.

He pointed out that with more hostels on campus, students living outside would take advantage and join their colleagues staying inside the institution.

According to him, no students will be attacked on campus by miscreants if they all live within the university premises.

“The hostels were formerly in a sordid state. I am appealing to NEEDS to consider building more hostels in the University of Port Harcourt.

“Remember the ‘Aluu 4’, where some students were killed outside the school premises. If they were living in a hostel within the university premises, they would not have been attacked by hoodlums,” Lale stressed.

Speaking on the newly renovated hostels, the vice chancellor explained that the resources for the project came from the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy Assessment Intervention Fund.

“Following the presidential intervention in 2013, a total sum of N5.6bn was allocated to UNIPORT. Of this amount, the university has received N5.1bn (representing 90 per cent of the allocation), in three tranches, leaving a balance of over N566m or 10 per cent of the total allocation.

“It is on record that contracts worth N3.6bn were awarded for the construction of 17 new facilities between August and October 2014. These projects are faculty and laboratory building, hostels, staff offices, roads and infrastructure as well as recreational facilities in our sports centre.

“The release of the third tranche of N1.3bn in August 2016 facilitated the award of contracts worth N1.2bn for the renovation and rehabilitation of 14 blocks of students’ hostels that were at different stages of dilapidation,” Lale added.

He, however, requested that the balance of payment on the 2013 allocation be released to the university, adding that the Implementation Monitoring Committee should also release over N600m fluctuation claims and the 10 per cent balance to enable the university to pay contractors.