MOUAU Cries Foul as FG Restores Delisted Programmes in Agric Varsities
Emmanuel Ugwu
It has emerged that the federal government may have yielded to criticisms of its new policy of scrapping courses it considered as noncore agriculture programmes in universities of agriculture as it has restored all the delisted programmes at Federal Universities of Agriculture, Abeokuta and Makurdi.
However, one of the three agric universities affected by the policy, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) was surprisingly left out in the change of policy thereby leaving the fate of students and staff of its College of Management Sciences (COLMAS) hanging in the balance.
The apparent discrimination by the government has led to protest by students of the institution, who condemned the rationale for shutting down COLMAS at the institution, while retaining it in Abeokuta and Makurdi.
The protesters who were mainly from the endangered college, chanted solidarity songs and carried placards as they marched on the campus demanding explanation on why their future is being compromised through policy somersaults of the federal government.
Some of the placards read: “Restore our Programmes in JAMB Brochure; “All we are saying give us COLMAS”; “Please Secure our Future in the Labour Market”; “My COLMAS, my College, our Future, let it be.”
The federal government had through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in a directive last November asked the three universities of agriculture to close down non-core agriculture programmes.
However just before the commencement of registration for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), it lifted the lid off Makurdi and Abeokuta, leaving out MOUAU. This means that the two agric universities would take in new students for their restored programmes, while the door is shut against prospective candidates who desire to apply for any of the seven delisted courses run by COLMAS in MOUAU.
The President of the Association of Management Science Students (AMSS), Mr. Onuoha Uzoma told the Dean, Prof. Ihendinihu that they marched to him to demand an explanation on their fate following what they heard about the scrapping of their programmes.
He promised that the students of COLMAS would not go violent to express their feelings over the action, but appealed to the dean to do his best to ensure that the college is not shut.
Ihendinihu told the students that it was true that JAMB had removed some programmes of the college in compliance with a directive from the ministry of agriculture and rural development, adding that he was sure the issue would be resolved since the delisted programmes have been restored in Makurdi and Abeokuta.
Speaking with journalists, the dean said the seven programmes of the college, accounting, banking and finance, economics, business administration, marketing and entrepreneurial studies are under threat.
He regretted that this year, JAMB has already delisted MOUAU from the administrative courses that COLMAS offers hence the future of the students is being compromised.
“What is more painful is that JAMB pretended to have kept three of our programmes, putting them as options under agribusiness,” he said, adding that the professional image of the courses would have been diminished by putting them as options.
With student population of 10,931, which is over 50 per cent of MOUAU’s total student population, there are fears that scrapping COLMAS would diminish the university, which is the only federal tertiary institution in Abia.
Moreover the entire southeast is shortchanged in the distribution of conventional federal universities as it has only three; hence scrapping the allied (conventional) courses from MOUAU would affect the chances of Abia indigenes gaining admission into federal universities.