Fire ravages Unijos library, 6 departments

The permanent site of the University of Jos on Saturday evening experienced an inferno that damaged the school library and six departments of the faculties of Social Science and Management Science.

The departments affected included Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Economics, Accounting and Business Administration as well as some offices of lecturers from the Faculty of Arts.

The fire also consumed the office of the dean, Faculty of Social Science as well as result sheets and yet to be marked exam scripts of undergraduate students.

At 10 am Sunday, men of the Plateau State fire service were still battling to put out the fire.

Witnesses claimed the fire had started from the library and spread to departments which shared the same floor with the library. The incident which was said to have started around 6:30pm, shortly after students had ended their exams for the day, left several cracks on the building which was commissioned in 1997 and stood as one of the first buildings at the permanent site of the university.

While briefing the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Sebastian Maimako, the school librarian, Dr. Stephen Akintunde, said the whole collection of arts and social science, management science, the computer lab and the reading section of the library were lost to the inferno.

The complex was constructed to serve as a library for the school but later on partitioned to house the faculties of Social Science, Management Science and a second library for the institution.

While briefing journalists on the level of destruction, the vice chancellor said, “For the university, this is a very sad development because this complex has served us for years. We have lectures for postgraduate students and examination for undergraduate students ongoing and this complex is used for these purposes.”