Breaking: 41 years after, Akpagu completes, to commission abandon multimillion building

Prof Zana Akpagu

By ONIGAH JOSEPH

The 41 year old Faculty of Annex which was recently completed by the Prof. Zana Akpagu led administration

Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Zana Akpagu will on Saturday, April 13th commission the multimillion Faculty of Arts Annex building 41years after work commenced in the project.


Work commenced in the building which is now housing three newly established departments, Mass Communication and Digital Media, Fine and Applied Arts and Music in the 70s when the University was established but abandoned afterward.

Akpagu while briefing press at the Senate Chambers on Tuesday on the 32 convocation ceremony of the institution said that the project which became a criminal den was revived and completed in his administration about 40 years after.

He said that "What you see now as Faculty of Arts Annex was an abandoned project that started in the 70s under the administration of the first VC of Unical. Grasses and trees outgrew the project but today we have now completed it and it's in use.

"The building is housing three newly established departments which include, Mass Communication and Digital Media, Fine and Applied Arts and Music".

He added that other projects to be commissioned on Saturday includes "Ultramodern ICT Laboratory, Faculty of Education Administrative block, female postgraduate hostel, Dental Laboratory", amongst others.

Akpagu will be commissioning the project in company of the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Dr. Abdullahi Baffa who is represent the Minister of Education in the University 32nd convocation ceremony holding between Thursday, April 11 and Saturday, April 13th.

Former Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubakar, former Cross River State Governor, Dr. Clement Ebri, Dr. Cletus Ilomuanya, CON, Chairman of Igbo Traditional Rulers Council who would be honoured with different honorary degrees will also be part of the entourage to commission the projects.

He added that the project was funded from the revenue generated internally by the university.

The VC further disclosed that the University will be convoking 9,1974 graduands with 51 of them bagging first class honours.

Ha gave the breakdown as "First degrees, 7,782. Five people have first class but 46 others from our affiliate institutions also made first class so the total for first class is 51. 2,356 made second class upper while 4,535 made second class lower. 6,72 will be graduating with third class while 42 have pass.

For Ordinary Diploma, we have 318. You know by NUC standard, we are not allowed as a University to award Ordinary Diploma Degrees but institutes can. So the number you see here are from our institutes.

"Fro higher degrees, we will be graduating 251, PhDs, 602, Masters and 221, Post Graduate Dipolma".

The VC said that part of activities to mark the convocation will be commissioning of projects completed in the last one year. Some of the projects are, Ultramodern ICT Laboratory, Faculty of Arts Annex, Faculty of Education Administrative block, female postgraduate hostel, Dental Laboratory amongst others".