UJ: VC laments precarious border security
From Tongnaan Bawa Jos
Vice Chancellor of the university of Jos, Professor Tanko Ishaya, has decried the precarious security situation around the university community and the porosity of the borders.
Professor Ishaya disclosed this at the institutes senate Secretariat in Jos, on Thursday, while presenting his two years stewardship in office.
Professor Ishaya explained that the location of the campus has placed the university in a precarious situation.
He said whenever there is a security breach in Jos, the University suffer one form of challenge or the other.
He said other issues that they are battling with is that of land encroachment on the borders.
The VC lamented that such have continued to pose a serious threat to the territories integrity as an institution. Adding that, they are in dire need for interventions to surmount the security challenges.
Professor Ishaya worried by the challenges, said they have recently, had illegal mining activities sprawling on Naraguta campus, which has greatly affected the security of lives and property of the community, and called for strict measures to address the various situations.
He however called on the federal and state governments to come to the aid of the university to ensure that proper boundaries are set to secure a conducive environment for learning.
The VC lamented that lack of budgetary allocation for recruitment since 2018 has remain a thing of concern because the institution lost some staff through retirements, changes of jobs and deaths,hence the need to fill the gap to meet the requirements of accreditation and resource verification exercise.
While talking on the welfare of staff and students during his two years in office, Prof Ishaya, disclosed that ” 97 academic staff were promoted to the rank of full professors and 89 to the rank of Readers (Associate Professors). And over 345 have benefited from training and development”
“To relieve the plight of our students as a result of the present economic situation, especially with the hike in the cost of transportation, just like we did for members of staff, we ensured that buses are stationed at strategic locations to help students commute at highly subsidized rates” He maintained.
On academic activities, he assured of continued focus on quality assurance to maintain and improve on desired academic standards.
“Currently, we have 70 out of 75 of our programmes with National Universities Commission (NUC) full accreditation status. This is about 93.3% of the pros that we run in contrast to 57 3% before we assumed office in 2021”
