Following the heated debate and anger in Delta State over Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s plans for the Delta State University of Science and Technology (DELSUST), Ozoro, a concerned Deltan and oil and gas expert, Dr. Jerome Asedegbega, has advised the governor to think of more productive ways of rewarding his Orerokpe Community rather than with a university.
Instead, the governor has been advised to site an industrial hub in Okpe Kingdom that would absorb thousands of university and polytechnic graduates, leaving the existing institutions in the state, noting that “where there’s a lack of innovation and creative thinking, one would expect this kind of hasty and acrimonious decision” of adding another higher institution.
It will be recalled that three new universities were created by the administration of Ifeanyi Okowa at Ozoro, Agbor and Asaba alongside the old one at Abraka to make four universities and three state-owned polytechnics. Oborevwori wants to move the Faculty of Management Sciences from Ozoro to Orerokpe for political expediency.
Asedegbega said: “The governor has the resources and powers to attract development to his Orerokpe, Okpe Kingdom, without necessarily fragmenting DELSUST, Ozoro. Has it ever crossed your mind that universities littered in the state without jobs to absorb the graduates they produce are useless and a waste of scarce resources? If yes, my noble advice and proposals to the governor is to convert the proposed university site in Orerokpe to an industrial hub.”
