Abia varsity set to establish faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Abia State University (ABSU), Uturu, has perfected arrangements to establish its faculty of pharmaceutical sciences, thus becoming the second university in the South East after University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) to offer such course following the release of N138 million special grant by the Education Trust Fund (ETF), to the institution.

Vice-chancellor, Professor Mkpa Agu Mkpa, who gave the cheery news in a press conference to mark the 20th convocation ceremony of the institution, said contract for the project had already been awarded, and expressed deep regret that hitherto, only UNN, out of the tertiary institutions in the South East states, offered the course, despite its scientific importance.

He noted that ABSU has accessed and made judicious use of all its ETF funds thus ranking among the first three universities to access ETF funds.
The VC, who has just returned from France where he bagged the “2009 Winner of the Star Excellence Award in the management of tertiary education in Nigeria” by the African Leadership Magazine, said they held bilateral talks with management of Uppsala University, Sweden, on exchange of programmes between the duo.
According to him, the visit, which was facilitated by the Nigerian Ambassador to Sweden, marks the beginning of a long lasting relationship with the 600 years old famous science university that publishes a minimum of 5000 research articles annually.

Prof Mkpa bemoaned the high level of decay in state universities due to poor funding and tasked the federal government to make available, at least 25 per cent of the total grants to federal universities for infrastructural development of state universities.

“It is not enough to set standards for us through NUC and tell us the number of courses and quality of lectures to have. The federal government should also help us to attain the standards because the state universities produce the manpower the federal government uses.”

He also used the forum to espouse some of the gains of the recently introduced Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) exam format of the institution, saying it has encouraged hard work among students and lectures alike.

According to him, an ABSU student who passed through the system emerged the overall best law student at the Nigeria Law School, Enugu, while another ABSU product won one of the six scholarship awards by the Japanese government to the best six engineering students in Nigeria.
On the menace of cultism on campus, the VC noted that cultist activities have reduced to about 70 per cent since he assumed office four years ago, and vowed to fight the monster to a standstill.

He however, noted that some disgruntled students mask as cultists to disposses fellow students of their money and other valuables with toy guns, especially at the beginning of semesters, but warned that “such criminal acts attract outright expulsion.”

As part of measures to eradicate cultism on the campus, he said all 31 registered Christian associations in the institution take a day, once in a month, to pray for the school besides the weekly prayers by all the departments in the school.

He also denied the allegation of embezzlement of funds to the tune of N10 billion as levelled against some principal officers of the institution by a faction of the alumni association.

The VC wondered how he could have embezzled such a whooping amount when all the funds that accrued to the university since 2005 was less than N10 billion.
He attributed the genesis of the friction between the association and management of the university to the refusal of the later to allow further remittance of alumni levies to the former, which it has continued to squander.

Mkpa argued that alumni associations are supposed to invest part of their personal earnings in their alma-mater  and not to “milk it dry” as in the case of ABSU alumni, adding that the leadership of the association has refused to conduct fresh election only to perpetuate themselves in office for further fleecing of the Alumni fund.