Published 10th Apr, 2022

By Mariam Hamzat

Students of the Zamfara State University (ZAMSUT) still attend classes in a primary school with only four employees five years after the school’s establishment.

The school, which was established in 2017 during the second tenure of Abdul-Aziz Yari Abubakar as governor of the state and opened for admission in 2018, can also not pay its visiting lecturers due to the failure of the state government to release the monthly N100 million overhead cost recommended by the strategy and development committee of the institution.

According to an investigative report by Daily Trust, a primary school was converted for the takeoff of the university, and since then, the university has not recruited permanent staff.

Amina Ibrahim, an indigene of Baruten Local Government Area of Kwara State who gained admission to study nursing at the university, said she realised the truth about the situation late.

“My happiness for securing admission into the ZAMSUT turned into bitterness because it soon dawned on me that I had entered ‘one-chance’. After my matriculation, I have not been stable in school as an undergraduate. From 2020, we spent almost two years away from the school due to the coronavirus palaver,” said Amina, a 200-level student of the institution.

“Then I realised that the school depended only on visiting lecturers because they don’t have permanent academic and non-academic staff.”

Another 200-level student of the institution said the government was playing politics with the university.

“Zamfara is the only state in the country that didn’t have a state university before it was established by the immediate past governor, Abdulaziz Yari. When the current governor took over, he suspended the university before reopening it,” he said.

“During our first semester, we suffered. There are no permanent lecturers and the visiting ones who come from time to time are not even paid. It is obvious that the governor is not serious about the university because since he came into office he has neither rendered any financial assistance nor visited the institution.”

An interview with another student also revealed that visiting lecturers come to teach about three times in a week. Despite this, they rush in order to go back to their schools.

Additionally, it was reported that although the National Universities Commission (NUC) approved the establishment of the university as the 162nd in the country as of 2018, it is yet to be accredited.

Things took a wrong turn after the 2019 Zamfara State election, when Bello Matawalle, a candidate of the then opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, became governor. At first, he was said to have set up a strategy and development committee that reviewed all the works that were executed by the previous administration. But despite the committee’s recommendation in favour of the university, the governor was initially averse to its continuation.

Eventually, following mass protests by concerned individuals, including parents and students of the institution, the governor reopened the school in 2020 and appointed Prof Mu’azu Gusau as vice chancellor, Bashiru Mafara as registrar, Usman Bungudu as bursar and Aminu Abdullahi as director of academic planning.

In 2021, Prof Gusau handed over to the current vice chancellor, Prof Yahaya Zakari Abdullahi.

Despite various recommendations made by the committee, the Zamfara State University has been operating from its temporary site without academic and non-academic staff. As a result, all the functions expected to be carried out by the relevant management employees like deans, heads of departments and examination officers are pushed to visiting lecturers who periodically come from other universities across the country.

The visiting lecturers have not been paid in months and the permanent site project is abandoned, but the state government is putting the blame on the previous administration.

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