Authorities of the University of Abuja which had been in the storm over some unaccredited courses have shut down the institution indefinitely.
Students of the university had yesterday in a rally, barricaded the Giri-Airport road while protesting Federal Government’s decision to suspend indefinitely the study of four programmes due to their lack of accreditation.
The students who described as “unfair and insensitive,” the Federal Government’s decision, stressed that the future of the affected students had been jeopardized; lamenting that the situation would have been evaluated before the decision which they said was draconic was taken.
A final year student of medicine who spoke with LEADERSHIP on anonymity said, “We have been talking to the management about this issue and they categorically told us that the courses would be accredited before we graduate. We have had to repeat classes not because we are dull but because the management does not know what it is doing.”
Another student who identified himself as Onu simply said the decision was taken to jeopardize the students and called for its reversal.
The aggrieved students claimed that they had studied a five- year course for eight years with no graduation date in sight. They thus claimed to be victims of blackmail and power tussle as “everything that happens in this school is politically motivated.”
The students who carried placards with different inscriptions on them and chanted war songs were directed by the vice chancellor, Prof James Adelabu to vacate the campus premises and begin their Easter break till further notice when a resumption date would be announced through the electronic media.
In a telephone interview with the general secretary of Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All, CSACEFA, Mr. Wale Samuel, LEADERSHIP gathered that, “As much as the problem was not far from inadequate infrastructure, carrying capacity and access to the open university system which is large enough to absorb willing students should be another option.”