From Tom Garba, Yola
The Deputy Rector, Academics of the Federal Polytechnic Mubi, Dr David Gbenyi, has called on the Federal Government to establish a special intervention for the reconstruction of the institution.
Gbenyi, in an interview further stated that the acts of vandalism by Boko Haram insurgency had left the institution with a lot of logistics challenges.
He said that the insurgents carted away a lot of equipment and vehicles belonging to both the institution and the staff, adding that that they vandalized laboratories and some of the engineering equipment.
The deputy rector who said the Rector, Dr Sadiq Yahaya ,was out for an official assignment but authorized him to speak with newsmen, said the institution had lost 12 members of staff and four students to the insurgency.
He said that the institution had since reopen as normal academic activities were going on in the campus.
Gbenyi said: “Some members of staff left Mubi with bad memories and that is why they are finding it difficult to stabilize psychologically. We recorded both human and material loses of unquantifiable degree in this institution. It will surprise you that the insurgents occupied our quarters and the psychological trauma is still there in some people. You can imagine that some of our staff who had up to three vehicles are trekking today and some are even due for their retirement.
“We have taken enormous security measures to safeguard lives and property in the institution, as I am talking to you, Mubi is safe and security is guaranteed on campus and we are advising parents to send their children to this campus.
“We have procured and installed solar panels for the illumination of the school environment; we have also procured bomb detectors to enable our security screen visitors very well at the points of entry into the campus.
“We are commending the security agencies here for their security networking which has sensitise our community on security.
“We have also instructed that social, culture and union activities should be low-key in the interim to prevent unnecessary gatherings which could serve as soft targets for the insurgents, and we are in discussions with unions for them to understand as these are temporally measures.
“Students enrolment has dropped due to the fear of insurgency and we are calling on prospective applicants to apply for the programmes of polytechnic.
“A presidential Committee had visited us here and took stock of all the vandalized items but since then we have not heard anything.
“Our concern is that we need more hostels on the campus for our students so as to provide adequate security for them other than staying off the campus.
“Government can consider completion of the over fifty staff houses, many of which were abandoned at lintel level for over twenty years.
“There is need for a parameter fence for the entire campus as we do not have a parameter fence right now and we need more security personnel to the institution to forestall any security breach on the campus.
“Since all our vehicles were taken away, we still have the challenge of vehicles and as such we are faced with high logistical cost.
“Before the invasion of the insurgents, we were preparing for an accreditation from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), a lot of equipment were vandalized.
“We request the government to replace the vehicles and also replace equipment for better teaching, learning and research.
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