… Receives, pledges support for new Chancellor, Prof. James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse Tor TIV
Edo State Government will support the University of Benin (UNIBEN) to get its encroached land back as it will inaugurate the Committee for the Protection of Private Property (PPP) next week, Governor Godwin Obaseki assured on Tuesday.
Obaseki who gave the assurance while playing host to UNIBEN new Chancellor, His Royal Majesty, (HRM) Orcivirigh Prof. James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse Tor TIV at the State House, noted that some of the cases to be treated by the committee include the land grabbing issue facing the Ivory Tower.
“For land grabbing, we will support the institution to get their land back as we will inaugurate the Committee for the Protection of Private Property (PPP) next week and some of the cases to be treated by the committee is the land grabbing issue facing the University of Benin.”
Governor Obaseki affirmed support for the new Chancellor, charging him to leverage his over 40 years of academic and leadership experience to develop the institution.
“University education in the post-COVID-19 world requires a rethinking of the system, and how it is organised. We see a university as a place for learning and dispatching knowledge via technology.
“The strategy used two or three decades ago for our university education might not be applicable today. But having someone like you to provide leadership for our own institution is commendable and significant. Hopefully, you will lead that stage of helping us rethink university education in Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 era.”
“For the future university, we will be quite reliant and dependent on technology. The role of universities will become much more democratic in terms of getting to the grassroots, and helping to lift our people out of the level of poverty that we found ourselves today,” he noted.
Obaseki continued: “UNIBEN is our own institution because of the relevance of the university to the development of our state; the quality and quantum of human resources provided make it important to support the school to fill the gap the federal government cannot fill.
“We will continue to invest in the university, supporting some of the infrastructures in and around the school, assisting in resurfacing some of the internal roads in the institution and working on an investment to bring uninterrupted power supply for the institution.”
On his part, the 10th Chancellor of UNIBEN said, “I am here to support the very good works you have been doing to take the institution to a greater height and I commend you for your numerous support for the University.
“I have been in the university system for some four decades and will use that experience and exposure, and make it available for the development of UNIBEN.”
