UI matriculates 3,514, warns against drug abuse

About 3, 514 candidates out of the 53, 513 admission seekers who chose the University of Ibadan (UI) recently took the matriculation oath with a call on them to shun drug abuse and all forms of violence on campus.

The figure also included 446 direct entry candidates who emerged out of the 2,659 applicants for admission into the university.With the new admission, the vice chancellor, Prof Idowu Olayinka said the success rate for admission in the institution currently stands at 6.6 percent for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) students while direct entry admission stands at 16.8 percent.

“With the very high quality of our intakes on account of the rigorous and transparent admission process, it is much easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a UTME applicant to secure admission into this institution. We make bold to state here that our admission is easily the most competitive among all the universities in the country,” Olayinka said.

Assuring the students that the school will not relent in its efforts to provide and improve on the existing facilities to ensure a conducive environment for teaching and learning, Prof. Olayinka pointed out that virtues such as intelligence, innovation, creativity, academic focus, sustained robust health, obedience to constituted authorities, regular and punctual attendance at lectures, religious tolerance and writing all continuous assessment tests are some of the conditions students desirous of earning the institution’s degree must possess.

He urged the students to shun the use of drugs with particular reference to codeine, tramadol, rohypnol, ecstacy and various mixtures of cannabis stressing that the dangers associated with the use of drugs are numerous.

“Academic performances suffers greatly from the use of these drugs and graduating with a decent grade may be incompatible with regular drug use. A student might find himself sleeping through lecture periods while under the influence of the drugs or unable to report for examination as well. These drugs have direct toxic effect on the brain causing reversible (sometimes irreversible) damages, which may manifest as seizures in a previously non-epileptic young person. The assault on the brain may also cause a young person to become suddenly psychotic manifesting by seeing and talking to unseen people and behaving abnormally. Other organs of the body also take a hit from the drugs especially the liver and kidney.”

“The university in collaboration with other organisation including National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has put in place a programme to assist students with substance abuse issue.The vice chancellor added that to ease the problem of accommodation of students on campus, the management has adopted the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) arrangement.