By Jimmy Jackson
The University of Calabar, Vice Chancellor Prof. Florence Obi, has disclosed plans to meet with the Minister of Education to appeal for urgent federal intervention in the ongoing crisis in the institution’s Department of Dentistry while exploring every possible avenue, including inter-university collaborations, to protect the academic future of the affected students.
The Vice Chancellor, who was a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, The Morning Brief, promised the affected students and their parents that the issue will be resolved in the next few months.
“I want to really appeal to the students and to parents because I have read somewhere where students are getting depressed and some of them are threatening suicide. I want to really appeal to my students to hold it, to be calm, that on my honour, we will see how, together, with MDCN (can resolve the problem).
“I am going to my minister to appeal to him to intervene because if we have some staff which is the critical issue, if we have staff and we know that the minister has given us the permission to employ, the sooner we employ them and get the dental clearance that MDCN has asked us to do, we will be able to invite them in the next one or two months and part of these problems will be resolved.”
Prof. Obi said that the issue is essentially as a result of overadmission of students, with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) saying that these students cannot be accommodated.
Prof. Obi identified the Dean of the Faculty and the university’s Admissions Officer as being at the centre of the infractions.
She said both individuals had been issued queries and are currently undergoing internal disciplinary procedures while assuring that there will be consequences
