FUTO Master Plan for Medical School Underway, As VC Decries Land Encroachment, Speculation
The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Professor Francis Eze has decried the activities of land speculators and encroachment among the host communities and land grabber as the reoccurring issue militating against the full development of the institution’s master plan especially as it affects the realisation of its medical school.
He said the institution had no doubt brought huge development to the host communities in terms of social change, education, capacity building, etc, adding that as an agent of change, the transformation of the host communities and their inhabitants since the relocation of the university to its permanent site in 1993, should not be disregarded.
Eze, whose five-year tenure would be coming to an end in about two months’ time, denied selling any land belonging to the university to anybody as alleged by host communities, stressing that, “our original position is that FUTO does not have the power to cede any land to anybody.”
According to him, FUTO has a master plan and the location for the medical school is at the Avu axis. We have started putting up structures for a medical school and that is my involvement as vice chancellor. I will not allow FUTO land to be taken away by people. There are many needs for the medical school and we are eager to pursue it to its full realisation.
On the issue of the federal government approving about 1,000 hectares to be ceded to the host communities, the VC said it was a proposal initiated by the university’s governing council which is yet to be concluded, adding that it is currently being deliberated by a committee involving the Imo State government through the state’s Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Physical Planning, Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, as well as FUTO to study the proposal and report back to the government.
“It is unfortunate that anybody from Imo State is against our expansion. The Governor and the Minister of State for Education are trying to assist us realise our goals. What the host communities’ attorney, Chief Sam Anokam is driving at, is his personal interest. It is the pressure from the host communities that the governing council proposed a certain part of the land to host communities.
The VC enumerated areas his administration had made in assisting the host communities including, providing cassava processing plant, construction of their roads, giving employment to them, among others.
He also described as false the allegation that FUTO VC refused to give out land to host communities as ordered by the federal government.
“There is nothing like that. It is like a battle between darkness and light. Yes, I have interest and that interest is to develop FUTO and project it as a place of excellence. We have not returned any inch of FUTO land to anybody. There is no committee involving the institution’s director of works and its physical planning counterpart, to give out any land to host communities.
“The land we have is not even enough, but the governing council proposed to cede about 1,000 hectares out of 4,500 hectares of FUTO land back to the host communities. That is only a proposal and not finality. No land has been given out already. We want the committee set up by the state government on the issue to conclude on the governing council’s proposal and as soon as that committee is through with her work, it will submit her report to the Governor who will eventually contact the federal government to implement on the issue,” he stated.
Coronavirus is presently not trotting, it is in a bolt. However, the good thing is that it is no longer quite a runaway horse. Rather, it is galloping on a saddler’s harness albeit at moderate speed indeed. By pure happenstance, it is a daily privilege to go by a country stable for the singular reason that you get to see live at least one horse ridden past. These horses are breathtakingly majestic in their gait, yet obedient to the directions of their riders big and small. With the harness and the voice, they wait for cars to drive past, then pick up their swagger, pace or saunter, and move on. So by way of taking stock, as we have now moved past the anniversary of the first worldwide COVID-19 lockdown, I have a sense that we are beginning to have and somewhat hold the reins of this deadly virus and illness. But of course this ‘have and hold’ is as relative to the individual as it is to the point and place you are at in time as you read me. In the past few months of having the privilege to administer the SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Rapid Qualitative Test to people and myself, every detail has been quite an experience. Although I acknowledge the greater risks to being closer to asymptomatic persons, testing has been a blessing in the way it has enabled me to develop all forms of pertinent skills, clinical as well as interpersonal, in this testing exercise. On the other hand, and I feel more importantly, it has enabled the first hand experience of being invited into the varied thoughts and emotions of people towards this pandemic. We are indeed all only human after all! Not a race I have interacted with is: unafraid of; prepared for; unruffled by or undaunted by COVID-19. People have come in expressing their different spiritual takes on the ‘pandemicness’ of SARS-Cov-2 and the COVID-19 infection. This reminds me of a famous Nigerian-literature figure ‘Brother Jero.’ I can assure you, as I continue to hear it that, there is a general consensus within brothers’ and sisters’ Jero across different religious grounds that - The Eternal God is at work, spelling out His Pre-Eminence, in order to, according to the voices of my testers: ‘reclaim His world’, ‘re-align human minds to essentials’ and ‘release fresh knowledge to tackle the appearance of emerging pathogens. Dis one no be sprawling House of God matter any longer. One thought-provoking allusion Hugh who is originally from Jamaica made, sticks to my mind - ‘The Eternal God now seeks to make man’s heart his place of residence. ‘If it were not so’, he justified, ‘why are the sprawling halls of worships empty for over a year now and God is seemingly nonplussed about its wasting?’ But not quite, God’s sanctuaries are not wasting! At least, this is my current opinion, and you are free to agree or disagree with me. All around me, His children have innovated its use to demonstrate that God will live in the affairs of men who allow/invite Him to do so. The temple curtain ripped apart when Jesus breathed His last; to reveal its setting that was erstwhile known only to the chief priests. One such current innovation I have experienced is church being used virtually 12/7 as centre for the Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccination. In fact the beauty of one of such is that with a qualified doctor on site-on shift, fresh vaccinates come into the worship hall to sit two metres apart and rest for 15 minutes, to be monitored for any form of anaphylactic reaction before exiting for their homes. No one needs to tell you that God is there; experientially for a solid 15 minutes you feel His comforting, healing, peaceful presence. Like the Trinity IS, you feel the sense that the church at that moment is filled with: The Godhead, the Sars-COVID-2 dilemma and every day people. Yet in that 15 minutes wait He touches your COVID ridden body! Have you invited God into that problem you’re undergoing yet?