Southern Borno Senator, Mohammed Ali Ndume has thrown more weight behind Governor Babagana Zulum who appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to halt the purported merger of the Nigerian Army University Biu, NAUB with the Nigerian Defense Academy, NDA in Kaduna.
Recall that the Oronsaye Committee Report (OCR) 2012, hitherto adopted by the federal government seeks to merge or scrap several Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), including institutions with duplicating functions as a means of cutting costs in governance.
Senator Ndume who addressed Journalists in Maiduguri on Friday said, Borno state, and indeed all the other states of the North East are proud of NAUB which was established in 2018, and therefore, for it to be merged or subsumed, it has to be by an Act of Parliament.
Ndume who is the Chief Whip noted that NAUB had even graduated its first set, while many undergraduates are waiting for graduation and issuance of their statement of results or certificates, stressing that scrapping such a top civil-military institution is against development and research.
The NAUB was created out of necessity and to ensure there is a civil-military relationship in the North Eastern parts of the country, especially Borno state which has suffered the devastation of lives and property due to over a decade of Boko Haram ( Western Education is Sin) insurgency.
Secondly, the NAUB is not part of the Oronsaye Report. The OCR was in 2012, while NAUB was established in 2018 by approval of the National Executive with the enactment of an appropriate law that backed it up after I sponsored that Bill.
NAUB is assented to by the then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and therefore is a law, and only another law can repel or subsume it to become another institution or faculty as the case may be.
The NDA is purely a military defense institution to train Military Officers, be it Army, Navy, or Airforce, while 75% of the student population in NAUB are civilians studying various degree courses in the existing six (6) faculties that are fully accredited by the Nigeria Universities Commission, NUC Therefore you cannot merge this University with an institution that is purely mandated to train Military Officers.
To this end, our Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum has already made the position of the Borno State Government clear by appealing to the President or the federal government to backtrack on its matter, because Borno has only one federal university/institution in Maiduguri serving the whole North East, before the establishment of NAUB, compared to other states that have many federal institutions.
“In addition, NAUB was also established to carter for admitting all Nigerians irrespective of where they came from. Let me give you an example, our neighboring Adamawa state currently has two federal universities, one in Jimeta-Yola and the other located in Mubi.
Even on 29th February 2024, the Senate passed a bill for the establishment of a federal university of technology in Ilaro, Ogun state. Several federal universities that were established have not been included in the merger, and we see no reason why NAUB will be merged with NDA.
We just held an emergency meeting with Borno Elders, including those from Southern Borno where the University is located. We deliberated and came up with a position similar to that of our Governor, so we are going to write our resolution to the federal government under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu to delist NAUB from the merger.
“This is very important because, I want to use this opportunity to call on the people of southern Borno Senatorial District to remain calm and be law-abiding, as we strive to ensure justice,” Ndume stated.
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