FG to Reconstitute Governing Councils of Federal Universities, Others

President Muhammad Buhari is to announce the reconstitution of the governing council of federal universities in the country. Also to be reconstituted are the governing councils of all federal polytechnics and colleges of education nationwide.

Buhari made this known yesterday in a message he sent to the 26th convocation and 35th anniversary of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

Similarly, the president disclosed that the boards of all parastatals under the Ministry of Education had been reconstituted. He said the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, “will release details of the reconstituted governing councils “at the appropriate time.”

The president, who was represented at the occasion by the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, indicted some specialised universities in the country for failing to operate within the mandate they were given and therefore directed that all Federal Universities of Technology should return to their original mandates immediately, declaring also that from the 2018 academic session, those that failed to comply would not receive funding from the federal government.

“The NUC and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) are to meet soon to ensure full compliance,” he said.

President Buhari said the federal government attached great importance to science and technology education as a catalyst for national development, saying the government would continue to give the sector its “fullest support.”

The Vice Chancellor of the university Professor Musbau Akanji, in an address, observed that the establishment of universities of technology by the federal government had not attained its objective as a result of poor funding and because the government did not realise that “you cannot use the same quantum of fund to train graduates of engineering and that of humanities.”

A total of 3,734 students graduated at the convocation with 2,788 receiving first degrees, 637 masters’ degrees 35 PhD and 274 got post graduate diplomas.

Of the total, 34 students came out with first class.

Culled from ThisDay.