Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello, Zaria (ABU), Professor Ibrahim Garba said the institution provides hostel accommodation for about 13,000 students out of a total population of over 50,000 students.
Speaking when he paid a courtesy visit to the Head Office of Media Trust Limited, publishers of Daily Trust newspapers yesterday in Abuja, Prof Garba decried the inability of the university to build new hostels in the last 45 years.
He therefore lauded the gesture by business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who has completed construction of new 10-block hostels buildings at the phase two of the university.
“Alhaji Aliko Dangote came to our convocation in 2016 and promised to build 10-block of hostels as I am speaking to you now they are 100 percent completed. These hostels will accommodate about 2,000 students in what we call ABU phase 2 site. In the last 45 years ABU has never built a single hostel. There has never been a new hostel.”
He said the new 10-block of hostels and additional 3-block built by the university would be commissioned soon.
He recalled that it was the military Government policy that barred universities from building additional hostels for fear of students protest.
He said some students would be relocated to the new student’s village as part of the university effort to tackle accommodation problem.
Prof Garba also said despite inadequate number of academic staff, the existing universities were over burdened by establishment of more universities.
“Lecturers are always inadequate but that is not what is disturbing us. What is disturbing us is the fact that within this inadequacy government now creates new universities and you don’t create lectures,” he said.
He said some lecturers struggle to service two to three universities in addition to their own universities.
