Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to reconsider the merging of Nigerian Army University, Biu (NAUB) with the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) as a faculty.
  
The merger of the varsity with NDA followed Tinubu’s directives for the implementation of the Steve Oronsaye panel’s report of rationalising Federal Government agencies, parastatals and commissions.
  
At a news conference in Maiduguri, yesterday, Zulum disclosed: “Borno State and the North East region, which is recovering from the 15-year terrorism, needed more institutions of higher learning.”
  
According to him, higher institutions of learning in the region will counter the negative narratives of the Boko Haram insurgency. Besides countering the narratives, he added: “Retaining of the university by the Federal Government could also bolster the non-kinetic approach of tackling the over a decade conflict.” 
  
He said the university had already admitted and graduated many students not only from the region, but from the six geo-political zones. Zulum lamented that many qualified students for the North East could not be admitted into other tertiary institutions in the country.
  
The governor added: “If it is possible, the President should allow the varsity as Army University because of the importance of education in the region, while Boko Haram is saying that education is forbidden.”
  
He warned that by allowing the university to be merged with NDA, the terrorists might have achieved one or two of their objectives in the country.
 Zulum, therefore, recommended that the Federal Ministry of Education could take over the Army University by converting it to a conventional university.
  
“The implementation of the Oronsaye Report is to reduce cost of governance with efficient delivery of services to the people,” he said.  He noted that the Federal Government’s rationalisation exercise was timely, particularly at a time the government is making efforts to reinvigorate the ailing economy.