Borno Governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, has appealed to the Federal Government over merging Army University Biu with the Nigerian Defence Academy, saying, “We need more universities to recover from the negative effects of the Boko Haram insurgency.
Zulum made the appeal in an interview with newsmen after supervising the distribution of palliatives to 100,000 vulnerable households in Maiduguri on Thursday.
He explained that the indigenes of Borno had limited access to education due to the fourteen years of Boko Haram conflict in the state.
According to him, Army University Biu has created educational opportunities for a high number of students in the Northeast region, while merging it as a faculty with the NDA would limit access to education in the region.
“I want to appeal on two things. One is the merger of the Army University Biu with the Nigerian Defence Academy.
“Borno State has been facing serious crises in the last fifteen years, and as a result of this, many of our children couldn’t have access to education.
“Therefore, this university is very important to the people of Borno State, but also to our neighbouring states.
“The people of Borno State are appealing to the President to look into this so that the Army University Biu will remain as the university.
“If this is not possible, it may be that the Federal Government does not want it to be an Army university. We are still appealing that the Federal Government should allow the Federal Ministry of Education to take over, and Army University would be the convention university.
“We want it to remain conventional because of the importance of education to this part of the country, while Boko Haram is saying that education is forbidden, and I think by allowing this university to be scrapped, then the insurgents have achieved one or two of their cardinal objectives.
“In all fairness to the federal government, this decision is a very good initiative for repositioning the country, but we are appealing to the federal government to reconsider the merging of Army University Biu with the Defence Academy because we need education in this part of the country.
“If you look at the number of students that are coming from this university, you will see that the number is very high,” said Zulum.
He applauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for implementing Oronsanye’s report with a view to restructuring the federal government agencies and commissions.
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