Okpara Varsity still awaiting take-off grant 32 years after creation – VC

About 32 years after its creation, the federal government-owned Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State, has been denied its take-off grant by subsequent federal administrations for no explained reasons.

This is despite sustained pressures and demands for its release by its subsequent Governing Councils and Management.

The scenario was revisited by the 6th Vice-Chancellor (VC), Professor Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, during the press conference.

He posited that Nigeria’s Federal Universities are yet to recover from the 2022 eight-month-long staff unions’ national industrial action and that despite federal government efforts to address the issue of withheld salaries, there are still issues of staff despondency and lukewarmness following the salary issues associated with that experience.

The VC, who told journalists that despite MOUAU’s various challenges, it has cumulatively, in the last three decades, made giant strides in academics, human capital development, infrastructure, community service, and administration.

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He said, “Our graduates are part of the manpower contributing immensely towards the socio-economic and political development of the nation and the world at large, as the University continues to make remarkable headway in various key areas and succeed in its making as an entrepreneurial university.”

He debunked the allegations in some ignorant quarters that its students were being exploited through fees and levies, saying that there are no fees but charges in federal institutions, adding that the seeming increases for services are in line with the fallout from the removal of the fuel subsidy by the federal government.

“There is no student exploitation. There is even an open standing Committee which has the mechanism to deal with such allegations.”

He reacted to a question on the state of the university infrastructure and facilities massively destroyed during the 6th February 2024 student violent demonstration on the campus, against which the government imposed a N25,000 reparation levy on each student as a condition for recall from their mass suspension.

He said that while such destroyed facilities were/are being repaired, students who did not pay the compulsory reparation levy risk sanctions.