UNICAL has many good stories to tell –Benue Varsity VC
From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
The President of the University of Calabar Alumni Association, Professor Yakubu Aboki Ochefu says the institution has many good stories to tell the world.
Professor Ochefu who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Benue State University as well as the Secretary General of the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities stated this this after the National Executive Council Meeting of the association in Calabar.
The Alumni President said the association briefed the Vice Chancellor, Professor Florence Obi on its decisions including a planned home coming ceremony, the alumni elections coming up next year and others.
He also said they expressed concern over the type of communication that comes out of the University of Calabar and they felt it more often than not portrays the university in bad light.
“We believe that the university of Calabar has so many good stories to tell but we don’t hear it on state and national media.
“We believe it was important for her to look at her communication unit to see the reason why UNICAL is in the news for the wrong reasons.
“There are quite a number of universities in Nigeria but they don’t make the type headline news that the university of Calabar makes.
“UNICAL has a number of award winners both locally and internationally and we never hear of these award winners.
“We have a lot of Alumni and researchers who have inventions and parents and are adding value to both local and international economics and they are not documented.
“There is a gentleman from the university of Calabar who recently entered the guineas book of records on Write-A-Thon and the publicity he got was just very pedestal.
“We have an engineering programme that has been certifies by COREN so these are the type of news that should be on a daily basis
“So what is the communication unit doing about it, what hear is that the school has randy professors.
“We are not saying that bad news should not be carried but it should also be matched with some of the fantastic things happening in the university that is not being communicated”, Professor Ochefu said.
Professor Ochefu said the Alumni commended the Vice Chancellor for how she came out to tackle the sex scandal at the faculty of law saying the system should not habour such persons.
He said the fact that the ICPC was brought in to be part of the investigation, now the allegation of witch haunting has been laid to rest.
He added that the association also commended the Vice Chancellor for efforts made to sanitize transcript administration in the institution saying those who graduated recently can now get it within 24 hours.
On the student loan act, he said it will not fly because the condition precedent is faulty.
“The time frame for repaying the loan is faulty, the wording of the act in terms of what constitutes who should take the loan is also faulty”, he said.
He commended the president for the initiative and hoped the errors will be corrected.
