By Edeki Igafe
The Vice Chancellor of the Nigerian Maritime University (NMU), Prof. Emmanuel Adigio, on Friday said that the institute was making effort to ensure its floating dockyard was brought to the university.
Adigio said this during a visit to the Secretariat of the Warri Correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the ground breaking ceremony of NMU was performed in May 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan in Okerenkoko Community, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta.
The university, however, commenced academic activities in May 2018 at its temporary site at Kurutie also in Warri South-West.
The vice chancellor said that hope was not lost on the multi-million Naira project meant to assist the students on practical works.
“A dockyard was bought for NMU to assist our students for practical but was never brought to the university.
“Reasons cited were insecurity, dredging of the water channel and non-viability among others.
“However, we are still trying to see that it is brought to our university or we be part of it wherever it is installed,” he said.
Adigio said that the university had made remarkable improvement since it commenced academic activities in 2018.
According to him, the institute has graduated her first set of students early in 2022, adding that another set in the Faculty of Engineering would be graduating soon.
“Before the graduation we called on the National University Commission (NUC) to accredit five of our programmes. The process for accrediting another eight programmes of the university will commence on Monday.
“We have built a standard workshop, buy a number of equipment and install them in the workshop,” he said.
Adigio said that there has been upsurge in the number of candidates seeking admission into the university, adding that the development had overwhelmed the facilities.
“As a paramilitary institution, we need to accommodate all the students and with the interest in the Maritime sector, there is upsurge of students applying to study in NMU.
“We are overwhelmed with the number of our students. However, to meet up, all our efforts have been geared recently to building hostels.
“We have built two hostels; one donated by Chevron and the other a capital project by the Federal Government.
“In Kurutie, we have added about two hostels one is in use now and one will be in use by next session.
“SPDC is also building 96 bed spaces, a massive structure. Another hostel project is going to start in the next few weeks, one is about 250 bed space in Kurutie while the other one 180 bed space to be cited in Okerenkoko,” he said.
While commending the federal government, individuals and donor agencies, Adigio identified lack of electricity supply from the national grid, accommodations, funding as some of the major challenges confronting the university. (NAN)