By Dauda R Pam MAIDUGURI
Governor Babagana Umara Zulum has commissioned 20 units of semi-detached bungalows, designed with courtyards, expressly built by the state government as an intervention that will increase access to staff housing alongside a solar-powered water system and electricity facility to serve the University of Maiduguri
The governor, a former lecturer at the university, had in August 2019, ordered the construction of two-bedroom houses. The commissioning ceremony signified the formal handing over of the houses to the University.
He announced that his budget for the 2020 fiscal year, will incorporate the construction of 50 units of single bedroom houses that will serve the junior staff of the University adding that, he, intends to oblige a request from his former faculty of engineering, in the area of infrastructure.
“We are doing so much for the University of Maiduguri not because I was a lecturer here but because UNIMAID has been the number one source of human resource in Borno State and this is why products of the university are present in virtually every home in the state. We have obligations to support the University because we are the beneficiaries as a state. The University on its part is also helping us in many ways including the critical support we are getting in helping to stabilize our state University that has just taken off. Most people working at Borno State University are products of UNIMAID. We will continue to do whatever we can to support this University that has done so much for Borno, the northeast and Nigeria” Zulum said.
In his welcome address, the vice-chancellor, University of Maiduguri, Professor Aliyu Shugaba, paid glowing tribute to Governor Zulum for his extreme passion for the university.
He recalled how the Governor stood by the university in the wake of insurgency attacks near the university and how the governor personally supervised the express delivery of the 20 houses, he promised.
