Pchidexy:


Thank you Abagworo. Think of what you can do for Imo state. Mandax is fixated with Orlu. If any area should complain,it is Okigwe.

Don't mind the guy. After Orlu zone has ruled for nearly 13 yrs he's still nagging

k

h

g

h

Good work Royald

Ejike ( ROYALD) stay on your useless and worthless imo state and its thread. I will be back here once more to publish to the world the real outlook of Owerri and imo state at large if you step your dirty feet on any matter that relates to Anambra and it's people on NL. You are warned!!

To all those who invade this thread with false stories and ugly pictures not taken from Imo state, come to Orlu to have the DEMONS cast away from you.

Where is abagworo?

but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that our Governor is working Go will bless him

I think MADAM JackBauresesBerem is already here at Orlu, Lol..... Oyibo go laugh tire.... for this kain system.

The level of work at the Concorde tunnel started 3 weeks ago as reported by "Rochas Pikin" on facebook. I'm impressed and urge the Governor to keep developing Imo quietly while ignoring the media attacks on his personality and my State Imo by election losers and our jealous neighbouring Igbo State.

Just returning from my sabbatical leave and all I see are wonderful pictures. Good work everyone!
@Abagworo, Pchidexy, RareDiamonds, Ejyke, Mandax and others. Ala Imo ga ga niru!

What a way for a governor to kiss bye to politics after his tenure. Charity begins at home




[b]1, At every slight rain fall in Orlu, flood waters threaten to carry multi-storey buildings, vehicles and humans, due to uncompleted Orlu urban drainage project started by a previous government of Imo state from St. Joseph's Church to empty floods into a nearby valley, about 1Km distance.

2, Gov. Okorocha has refused to asphalt the roads his contractors roughened, poured red sand on top and abandoned in Orlu, red sands which thousands of residents have been taking dust from in the past four years the roads were abandoned.


3, Immediately he became governor, Rocha Okorocha dismantled a completed Orlu stadium with flood lights;

a stadium built by a reputable stadium construction company, VISTA, in less than one year;

but in nearly five years, Okorocha has been pretending with a few manual labourers to be building a replacement stadium in Orlu; but the walls have not even gone beyond house fence level, the inside so far, is not one millionth part like a modern sports stadium.

4, Orlu regional water supply scheme prepared by IMSG (like those of Okigwe and Owerri) to supply water to nearly all the twelve LGAs in Orlu district was on top to be started by IMSG when Okorocha became governor. Today no body knows where Rochas Okorocha placed it.
[/b]

millionaireman:
What a way for a governor to kiss bye to politics after his tenure. Charity begins at home




[b]1, At every slight rain fall in Orlu, flood waters threaten to carry multi-storey buildings, vehicles and humans, due to uncompleted Orlu urban drainage project started by a previous government of Imo state from St. Joseph's Church to empty floods into a nearby valley, about 1Km distance.

2, Gov. Okorocha has refused to asphalt the roads his contractors roughened, poured red sand on top and abandoned in Orlu, red sands which thousands of residents have been taking dust from in the past four years the roads were abandoned.


3, Immediately he became governor, Rocha Okorocha dismantled a completed Orlu stadium with flood lights;

a stadium built by a reputable stadium construction company, VISTA, in less than one year;

but in nearly five years, Okorocha has been pretending with a few manual labourers to be building a replacement stadium in Orlu; but the walls have not even gone beyond house fence level, the inside so far, is not one millionth part like a modern sports stadium.

4, Orlu regional water supply scheme prepared by IMSG (like those of Okigwe and Owerri) to supply water to nearly all the twelve LGAs in Orlu district was on top to be started by IMSG when Okorocha became governor. Today no body knows where Rochas Okorocha placed it.
[/b]

I'm glad you criticise because you want more attention given to your area which is good. For example your new Eastern Palm University already has better infrastructure than IMSU.

The new Stadium is 95% completed with very beautiful landscaping and more befitting than the old stadium. The Owerri water scheme has commenced operation and you and I hopefully will be here when that of Orlu comes to fruition. The 27 hospitals have now been completed and their equipments have arrived.

The only thing being used against Okorocha which is the civil servants pay is not in any way his responsibility. Labour now gets the money directly to pay themselves while 30% is used for the rest of the State.

Abagworo:


I'm glad you criticise because you want more attention given to your area which is good. For example your new Eastern Palm University already has better infrastructure than IMSU.

The new Stadium is 95% completed with very beautiful landscaping and more befitting than the old stadium. The Owerri water scheme has commenced operation and you and I hopefully will be here when that of Orlu comes to fruition. The 27 hospitals have now been completed and their equipments have arrived.

The only thing being used against Okorocha which is the civil servants pay is not in any way his responsibility. Labour now gets the money directly to pay themselves while 30% is used for the rest of the State.

In bold above:


[b]Eastern Palm Univ. what?

How many Imolites can afford to foot the bills in a private university which the Ogboko university is tactically placed to become?

If in one period an average Owerri man can train four wards in all the govt universities and Polytechnics in Owerri, because the wards all go to school from home, an Orlu man shall be struggling to train only one ward. That wide disparity in availability of tertiary education facilities between Owerri and Orlu people still remains, despite the presence of YOUR private university in Ogboko.

Orlu people got fcuccked up once again; the people expected Okorocha to use the Ogboko campus to bring more faculties of IMSU to Orlu zone, given that there are too many other faculties in the other govt universities in Owerri. Alas Rochas was thinking of his private university business alone.


Water.

Hopefully, water boreholes that usually close the day after inauguration are not what Okorocha govt has in mind to substitute the surface water supply scheme planned by Imo state govt to supply treated water to nearly all the local govt areas in Orlu zone.

Like the multi-billion Naira Otamiri water works supplying lots of LGAs in Owerri zone, and the Imo River water works in Umuna for all the LGAs in Okigwe zone, the surface water supply scheme for Orlu zone was also planned to source water from Njaba or Orashi River, or from both.

If in any doubt, Gov. Rochas may have to ask ex-gov Ohakim who was promising to start work on Orlu Surface water supply scheme until he was voted out.

Building of this water scheme for Orlu zone is one of the major reasons Orlu people dared Ohakim's PDP rigging machinery at all costs, even at the cost of risking lives, to ensure Okrocha's victory at the polls.


[/b]

Nice one, RoyalD.
Oguta is really beautiful and planned. I am yet to see a more planned village in Nigeria .

MORE ON GOING WORKING

GOOD

IMO INDUSTRIAL PARK EGBEMA

millionaireman:


In bold above:


[b]Eastern Palm Univ. what?

How many Imolites can afford to foot the bills in a private university which the Ogboko university is tactically placed to become?

If in one period an average Owerri man can train four wards in all the govt universities and Polytechnics in Owerri, because the wards all go to school from home, an Orlu man shall be struggling to train only one ward. That wide disparity in availability of tertiary education facilities between Owerri and Orlu people still remains, despite the presence of YOUR private university in Ogboko.

Orlu people got fcuccked up once again; the people expected Okorocha to use the Ogboko campus to bring more faculties of IMSU to Orlu zone, given that there are too many other faculties in the other govt universities in Owerri. Alas Rochas was thinking of his private university business alone.


Water.

Hopefully, water boreholes that usually close the day after inauguration are not what Okorocha govt has in mind to substitute the surface water supply scheme planned by Imo state govt to supply treated water to nearly all the local govt areas in Orlu zone.

Like the multi-billion Naira Otamiri water works supplying lots of LGAs in Owerri zone, and the Imo River water works in Umuna for all the LGAs in Okigwe zone, the surface water supply scheme for Orlu zone was also planned to source water from Njaba or Orashi River, or from both.

If in any doubt, Gov. Rochas may have to ask ex-gov Ohakim who was promising to start work on Orlu Surface water supply scheme until he was voted out.

Building of this water scheme for Orlu zone is one of the major reasons Orlu people dared Ohakim's PDP rigging machinery at all costs, even at the cost of risking lives, to ensure Okrocha's victory at the polls.


[/b]

I hate the way many people lay emphasis on university education whereas there are no jobs. Unemployment rates keep increasing and we are busy building more universities.

It's high time Nigerian govt went back to skill/vocational studies. University education does not guarantee a better life in Nigeria anymore but skills do.

Everyone must not have university education, never! Other countries have already realised that, that's why they lay emphasis on skill acquisition in high school which enables their citizens to leave school and start bettering their lives while a few further to university.

If we continue like this, a school leaver in US, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, China, etc will always be a boss to a Nigerian graduate because we merely learn "academics" without "skills" whereas they have the technological skills required to automate and drive processes and industries.

We must redirect our focus from academics to skills that will ultimately lead to innovations esp now that crude oil has become almost worthless

deutchroyal:
IMO INDUSTRIAL PARK EGBEMA

where did you get this pic of the industrial park that is being built? I have searched for it online but I can't find any pics of it..do you have the shell gas construction pics?

millionaireman:


In bold above:


Eastern Palm Univ. what?

How many Imolites can afford to foot the bills in a private university which the Ogboko university is tactically placed to become?

That University believe you me will be either absolutely free like all Rochas foundation schools across Nigeria or will have the cheapest school fees. Don't underestimate Okorocha who has been running multiple free Secondary schools in Nigeria with standard of some of the best private schools. IMSU is having issues because of sectional politics of Orlu vs Owerri. The permanent site should have been in Orlu as Alvan, Nekede and FUTO are in Owerri zone. What Okorocha achieved is milestone I must say. Now Owerri, Okigwe( ABSU is more or less there) and Orlu zones have standard higher institutions.

Nature129:


I hate the way many people lay emphasis on university education whereas there are no jobs. Unemployment rates keep increasing and we are busy building more universities.

It's high time Nigerian govt went back to skill/vocational studies. University education does not guarantee a better life in Nigeria anymore but skills do.

Everyone must not have university education, never! Other countries have already realised that, that's why they lay emphasis on skill acquisition in high school which enables their citizens to leave school and start bettering their lives while a few further to university.

If we continue like this, a school leaver in US, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, China, etc will always be a boss to a Nigerian graduate because we merely learn "academics" without "skills" whereas they have the technological skills required to automate and drive processes and industries.

We must redirect our focus from academics to skills that will ultimately lead to innovations esp now that crude oil has become almost worthless

From all indications, you sound like a product of a university.

Did you attend the university to get employed by government/private sector, or did you attend the university to increase your skills and capacity to adapt to any environment or situation that faces you in life?

Most people attend the university because of the later, not just for employment.

Above all, every political leader must find it easier to lead a bunch of university graduates, than lead lesser mortals.

Abagworo:



That University believe you me will be either absolutely free like all Rochas foundation schools across Nigeria or will have the cheapest school fees. Don't underestimate Okorocha who has been running multiple free Secondary schools in Nigeria with standard of some of the best private schools. IMSU is having issues because of sectional politics of Orlu vs Owerri. The permanent site should have been in Orlu as Alvan, Nekede and FUTO are in Owerri zone. What Okorocha achieved is milestone I must say. Now Owerri, Okigwe( ABSU is more or less there) and Orlu zones have standard higher institutions.

@ Abagworo,
Free university education? In what world? Or in Mars?

Unless you want to produce the type of graduates Nature129 above is kicking against.

A half-way solution is govt subsidized universities - the type that litter all over Owerri - from FUTO to ALVAN UNIVERSITY to IMSU and IMOPOLY to POLYNEKEDE; but all the the above are benefiting more indigenes of Owerri zone than people from any other zone.

Duplicating IMSU faculties in Orlu zone could have made university education cheaper for people in Orlu zone.

I do not have the shell gas construction pics

asha80:
where did you get this pic of the industrial park that is being built? I have searched for it online but I can't find any pics of it..do you have the shell gas construction pics?

This Facebook post by Saharareporters reminded me of this Imo State thread where people keep posting the same images of the same roundabout and the same hotel over and over again for over 4 years..

It's sad that we still haven't even understood the basic concept of division of labour..

Honestly if you set up one plant where you can produce asphalt and road materials then the manpower is full everywhere and let the people build their city..

Instead of waiting until you accumulated enough foreign money to hire a Chinese man to do it..

The Niggerian economy is just nonsensical..

Hezekiah University: The Nigerian University where the Vice Chancellor Lectures
By Odogwu Emeka Odogwu On 15/04/2016 05:53:10 AM

Hezekiah University is the cheapest private university in Nigeria, says VC Prof Emeka Ezeonu
His Grace, the Most Rev. (Prof.) Daddy Hezekiah (MFR), the Anointed Prophet of the Most HIGH God and founder of Living Christ Mission Inc., made another major achievement recently by founding the Hezekiah University, Umudi, Nkwerre Local Government area of Imo State.
And with the arrival of this great, new private university in Nigeria, the Hezekiah University (aka UNIHEZ), hundreds of stu­dents seeking admission into ter­tiary institutions in Nigeria heaved a big sigh of relief. This is because Daddy Hezekiah is known for ex­cellence, professionalism and phi­lanthropy in all he does.
The Board of the Institution went for the best and appoint­ed Prof Francis Chukwuemeka Ezeonu as its pioneer Vice Chan­cellor. Before, Ezeonu’s appoint­ment in November 2015, he held dual Professorial appointments at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Univer­sity, Awka, Nigeria as Professorial Chair in Environmental Biochem­istry & Toxicology at the Depart­ment of Applied Biochemistry (appointed in 2001) and another chair in Drug and Pharmaceutical Chemistry (appointed 2010) at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Scienc­es both of Nnamdi Azikiwe Uni­versity.
Ezeonu holds a Bachelor of Sci­ence (B.Sc) degree in Applied Bio­chemistry of the defunct Anambra State University of Technology (ASUTECH), Enugu, the pro­genitor of Enugu State Univer­sity of Science and Technology and Nnamdi Azikiwe Universi­ty, Awka. He also hold a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Bio­chemistry from the University of Ibadan and a Doctor of Philoso­phy (Ph.D.) degree in Applied Bio­chemistry from the Nnamdi Aziki­we University, Awka.
He started his university teach­ing career in 1988 from the Uni­versity of Ibadan where as a post­graduate student he doubled as a Graduate Demonstrator and was entrusted with organizing prac­tical classes for pre-clinical med­ical students. On completion of his M.Sc. programme in 1989, he was hired as Assistant Lectur­er by his undergraduate parent department at ASUTECH and promoted to Lecturer II in 1990. With the splitting of the Universi­ty into two, he transferred his ser­vices to Nnamdi Azikiwe Univer­sity and rose speedily to the rank of Professor in 2001. He also holds a certificate (Executive Education) in Leadership Decision Making from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univer­sity, U.S.A.
He was in 2010 appointed the only African scientist in a 31-member International Joint Expert Committee of FAO/WHO on the Toxicity of Bisphenol A. He is widely travelled and capacity de­velopment and educational tour­ism has taken him to over twenty five universities outside Nigeria (in Europe, USA, Canada, China and the rest of Africa).
He pioneered the establishment of the Directorate of International Cooperation (IC), the Directorate of Information and Communica­tion Technology (ICT) and is cur­rently founding the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Devel­opment.
No wonder Daddy Hezekiah went for Prof Ezeonu even when he did not apply for the job but had superlative recommenda­tions of the greatest Vice Chan­cellor Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka ever had, Prof Ilochi Okafor, SAN. Ezeonu , the Hezekiah VC, is conversant with the world’s best academic practices and has in his short stay in office demonstrated uncommon knowledge, financial prudence, discipline, courage and will-power to pioneer and bring about innovations that can enrich the fortunes of UNIHEZ universi­ty to the admiration of all.
The first matriculation ceremo­ny of the university comes up to­day, 15th April, 2016 at the Univer­sity’s Matriculation Ground, with 112 students, because the Universi­ty academic programmes were not advertised in the JAMB brochure for the 2015/2016 session. So, they sourced for students, which is their responsibility and regularized their admission with JAMB because they didn’t have people who applied to be admitted or sent to them by JAMB.
Prof Ezeonu reveals the efforts and journey so far in this encoun­ter with The AUTHORITY News­paper’s team. Excerpts:
The journey so far
I never applied for the job but I was quite impressed when I got there. I saw evidence of somebody who is serious to run a Universi­ty from the Promoter, Prof Daddy Hezekiah, MFR, Odum-Ebo-Ndig­bo (The Lion of Igbo tribe), and I felt it will be a good development if I can also lend my support. I was appointed and I resumed duty on 2nd November, 2015 and by 30th November, we kicked off with ac­ademic activities with the first set of students and we were able to complete our first semester and by Thursday of the Holy Week, we completed our first semester and we resumed for the second semes­ter on April 11th.
Is it true you enter the classroom as VC?
Under normal circumstances, a VC is just like a teacher. You have to be exemplary in what you do. I like teaching and under normal circumstances, a VC should have at least 1 or 2 Credit loads and in more advanced Universities, they take it from the post-graduate stu­dents. I feel that a VC teaching will serve as a morale booster to stu­dents.
For the lecturers, they know that if a VC is in the classroom and on time, they will have no excuse to stay away from lectures. Apart from that, I do regular monitoring, since we have limited departments and few number of students. As for the students, I interact with them reg­ularly as a way of creating a feed­back mechanism.
Once every month, I create a forum where I interact with stu­dents to find out how the lectures are going and the challenges they have. So, I think it has some posi­tive impact on the students because they feel excited when VC comes around for lectures.
Plans in view to enlarge the uni­versity?
From the experience of the pri­vate Universities, starting up a uni­versity with 112 students indicates that we have a good patronage be­cause before now, we have no name identity. But this time, our univer­sity has been enlisted by JAMB and people will willingly apply, though, we don’t know the number yet.
There are some of these tradi­tional courses that are no longer highly subscribed for, courses like Botany, Mathematics, Physics, and Christian Religious Studies and so on. We have looked at them around and have rebranded these Cours­es so that we can have a greater pa­tronage.
For instance, we are looking at changing the department of Bota­ny to the department of Plant and Environmental Biology and when we do that, we will upgrade our scheme to cover areas not captured in our previous courses.
We also have plans to rebrand some of our Courses, we want our Physics to be with Electronics, so that we have real life application. Physics appears abstract the way it is today, but if they do Physics/Electronics, they will have practical application. We want our Physics graduates to play around with Elec­tronic Circuit as a practical knowl­edge and produce Mother Board. That is when they will have a feel of serious Industrial Application.
We also want to market our­selves. In most developed coun­tries like UK, US, you have to ad­vertise yourself because if you get to a place like London, within the London metropolis, you will find out you have more than 10 good universities and when you look at the ratio of the population, you will see the need to market yourself.
Here, the demand and supply pattern does not favour the ap­plicants. Every year, we have mil­lions of students who end up not getting admitted. The fact that we are contending with older univer­sities, we have to market ourselves to show our capability so that we can attract these students and that is why we want to introduce what is called an “Open Day” where pro­spective students and their parents can come around our university to look at our facilities to find out our capabilities which will help them to make their choice.
How many Courses have been accredited in your University?
We have not made any. What happens is that before accredita­tion, you have to meet certain cri­teria. The NUC will send an expert group to come and see the resourc­es we have and determined if it is sufficient to start a University. Of course we were okay and we were given a quota to take 500 students for now. The quota will increase when we expand and grow.
We have three facilitates for now; faculty of Natural and Applied Sci­ences, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences and faculty of Hu­manities. Within these three facul­ties, we have nine (9) departments and 11 programmes. We are look­ing forward to improving in our programmes and also the possibili­ty of making the department of Po­litical Sciences to become Depart­ment of Political Science and public Administration, because people are calling to know if we have these causes. We try to find out what people need and try to incorpo­rate them in our programmes.
Your employer, Daddy Hezeki­ah, is a Philanthropist and most students in the university are on scholarship. Is that why you are facing the challenge of finance to run the university?
You are right because our uni­versity is one of the cheapest pri­vate universities in the country for now. The school fee is N350,000 but the promoter, Daddy Hezekiah, a philanthropist, has granted partial scholarship to all the students. He promised to pay N100,000 to the first 500 students and he did exact­ly that to those already in the pro­gramme.
We are not-raising much from school fees. For now, we are relying heavily on his benevolence, hoping that with time, we will be there. We want to introduce Joint Universi­ty Preliminary Examination Board (JUPEB) founded by a Consortium of about 11 Federal Universities to­gether with JAMB and over 30 Ni­gerian Universities have affiliated with JUPEB programme.
JUPEB is a foundation course (a one-year programme) if one fin­ishes it and writes certified exam and passes, it qualifies the person to enter into any Nigerian University that subscribes to the programme. It means that one can come in as a 200 level student. We have applied to JUPEB. The first set of JUPEB graduates were admitted in direct entry in 2004 and it rotates. By the time it comes around, we will be joining. A team of JUPEB has al­ready visited the university and we are expecting a feedback from them and I am convinced they are satis­fied with what they saw.

http://www.authorityngr.com/2016/04/Hezekiah-University--The-only-Nigerian-University-where-the-Vice-Chancellor-lectures/

Hezekiah University: The Nigerian University where the Vice Chancellor Lectures
By Odogwu Emeka Odogwu On 15/04/2016 05:53:10 AM

Hezekiah University is the cheapest private university in Nigeria, says VC Prof Emeka Ezeonu
His Grace, the Most Rev. (Prof.) Daddy Hezekiah (MFR), the Anointed Prophet of the Most HIGH God and founder of Living Christ Mission Inc., made another major achievement recently by founding the Hezekiah University, Umudi, Nkwerre Local Government area of Imo State.
And with the arrival of this great, new private university in Nigeria, the Hezekiah University (aka UNIHEZ), hundreds of stu­dents seeking admission into ter­tiary institutions in Nigeria heaved a big sigh of relief. This is because Daddy Hezekiah is known for ex­cellence, professionalism and phi­lanthropy in all he does.
The Board of the Institution went for the best and appoint­ed Prof Francis Chukwuemeka Ezeonu as its pioneer Vice Chan­cellor. Before, Ezeonu’s appoint­ment in November 2015, he held dual Professorial appointments at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Univer­sity, Awka, Nigeria as Professorial Chair in Environmental Biochem­istry & Toxicology at the Depart­ment of Applied Biochemistry (appointed in 2001) and another chair in Drug and Pharmaceutical Chemistry (appointed 2010) at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Scienc­es both of Nnamdi Azikiwe Uni­versity.
Ezeonu holds a Bachelor of Sci­ence (B.Sc) degree in Applied Bio­chemistry of the defunct Anambra State University of Technology (ASUTECH), Enugu, the pro­genitor of Enugu State Univer­sity of Science and Technology and Nnamdi Azikiwe Universi­ty, Awka. He also hold a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Bio­chemistry from the University of Ibadan and a Doctor of Philoso­phy (Ph.D.) degree in Applied Bio­chemistry from the Nnamdi Aziki­we University, Awka.
He started his university teach­ing career in 1988 from the Uni­versity of Ibadan where as a post­graduate student he doubled as a Graduate Demonstrator and was entrusted with organizing prac­tical classes for pre-clinical med­ical students. On completion of his M.Sc. programme in 1989, he was hired as Assistant Lectur­er by his undergraduate parent department at ASUTECH and promoted to Lecturer II in 1990. With the splitting of the Universi­ty into two, he transferred his ser­vices to Nnamdi Azikiwe Univer­sity and rose speedily to the rank of Professor in 2001. He also holds a certificate (Executive Education) in Leadership Decision Making from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univer­sity, U.S.A.
He was in 2010 appointed the only African scientist in a 31-member International Joint Expert Committee of FAO/WHO on the Toxicity of Bisphenol A. He is widely travelled and capacity de­velopment and educational tour­ism has taken him to over twenty five universities outside Nigeria (in Europe, USA, Canada, China and the rest of Africa).
He pioneered the establishment of the Directorate of International Cooperation (IC), the Directorate of Information and Communica­tion Technology (ICT) and is cur­rently founding the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Devel­opment.
No wonder Daddy Hezekiah went for Prof Ezeonu even when he did not apply for the job but had superlative recommenda­tions of the greatest Vice Chan­cellor Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka ever had, Prof Ilochi Okafor, SAN. Ezeonu , the Hezekiah VC, is conversant with the world’s best academic practices and has in his short stay in office demonstrated uncommon knowledge, financial prudence, discipline, courage and will-power to pioneer and bring about innovations that can enrich the fortunes of UNIHEZ universi­ty to the admiration of all.
The first matriculation ceremo­ny of the university comes up to­day, 15th April, 2016 at the Univer­sity’s Matriculation Ground, with 112 students, because the Universi­ty academic programmes were not advertised in the JAMB brochure for the 2015/2016 session. So, they sourced for students, which is their responsibility and regularized their admission with JAMB because they didn’t have people who applied to be admitted or sent to them by JAMB.
Prof Ezeonu reveals the efforts and journey so far in this encoun­ter with The AUTHORITY News­paper’s team. Excerpts:
The journey so far
I never applied for the job but I was quite impressed when I got there. I saw evidence of somebody who is serious to run a Universi­ty from the Promoter, Prof Daddy Hezekiah, MFR, Odum-Ebo-Ndig­bo (The Lion of Igbo tribe), and I felt it will be a good development if I can also lend my support. I was appointed and I resumed duty on 2nd November, 2015 and by 30th November, we kicked off with ac­ademic activities with the first set of students and we were able to complete our first semester and by Thursday of the Holy Week, we completed our first semester and we resumed for the second semes­ter on April 11th.
Is it true you enter the classroom as VC?
Under normal circumstances, a VC is just like a teacher. You have to be exemplary in what you do. I like teaching and under normal circumstances, a VC should have at least 1 or 2 Credit loads and in more advanced Universities, they take it from the post-graduate stu­dents. I feel that a VC teaching will serve as a morale booster to stu­dents.
For the lecturers, they know that if a VC is in the classroom and on time, they will have no excuse to stay away from lectures. Apart from that, I do regular monitoring, since we have limited departments and few number of students. As for the students, I interact with them reg­ularly as a way of creating a feed­back mechanism.
Once every month, I create a forum where I interact with stu­dents to find out how the lectures are going and the challenges they have. So, I think it has some posi­tive impact on the students because they feel excited when VC comes around for lectures.
Plans in view to enlarge the uni­versity?
From the experience of the pri­vate Universities, starting up a uni­versity with 112 students indicates that we have a good patronage be­cause before now, we have no name identity. But this time, our univer­sity has been enlisted by JAMB and people will willingly apply, though, we don’t know the number yet.
There are some of these tradi­tional courses that are no longer highly subscribed for, courses like Botany, Mathematics, Physics, and Christian Religious Studies and so on. We have looked at them around and have rebranded these Cours­es so that we can have a greater pa­tronage.
For instance, we are looking at changing the department of Bota­ny to the department of Plant and Environmental Biology and when we do that, we will upgrade our scheme to cover areas not captured in our previous courses.
We also have plans to rebrand some of our Courses, we want our Physics to be with Electronics, so that we have real life application. Physics appears abstract the way it is today, but if they do Physics/Electronics, they will have practical application. We want our Physics graduates to play around with Elec­tronic Circuit as a practical knowl­edge and produce Mother Board. That is when they will have a feel of serious Industrial Application.
We also want to market our­selves. In most developed coun­tries like UK, US, you have to ad­vertise yourself because if you get to a place like London, within the London metropolis, you will find out you have more than 10 good universities and when you look at the ratio of the population, you will see the need to market yourself.
Here, the demand and supply pattern does not favour the ap­plicants. Every year, we have mil­lions of students who end up not getting admitted. The fact that we are contending with older univer­sities, we have to market ourselves to show our capability so that we can attract these students and that is why we want to introduce what is called an “Open Day” where pro­spective students and their parents can come around our university to look at our facilities to find out our capabilities which will help them to make their choice.
How many Courses have been accredited in your University?
We have not made any. What happens is that before accredita­tion, you have to meet certain cri­teria. The NUC will send an expert group to come and see the resourc­es we have and determined if it is sufficient to start a University. Of course we were okay and we were given a quota to take 500 students for now. The quota will increase when we expand and grow.
We have three facilitates for now; faculty of Natural and Applied Sci­ences, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences and faculty of Hu­manities. Within these three facul­ties, we have nine (9) departments and 11 programmes. We are look­ing forward to improving in our programmes and also the possibili­ty of making the department of Po­litical Sciences to become Depart­ment of Political Science and public Administration, because people are calling to know if we have these causes. We try to find out what people need and try to incorpo­rate them in our programmes.
Your employer, Daddy Hezeki­ah, is a Philanthropist and most students in the university are on scholarship. Is that why you are facing the challenge of finance to run the university?
You are right because our uni­versity is one of the cheapest pri­vate universities in the country for now. The school fee is N350,000 but the promoter, Daddy Hezekiah, a philanthropist, has granted partial scholarship to all the students. He promised to pay N100,000 to the first 500 students and he did exact­ly that to those already in the pro­gramme.
We are not-raising much from school fees. For now, we are relying heavily on his benevolence, hoping that with time, we will be there. We want to introduce Joint Universi­ty Preliminary Examination Board (JUPEB) founded by a Consortium of about 11 Federal Universities to­gether with JAMB and over 30 Ni­gerian Universities have affiliated with JUPEB programme.
JUPEB is a foundation course (a one-year programme) if one fin­ishes it and writes certified exam and passes, it qualifies the person to enter into any Nigerian University that subscribes to the programme. It means that one can come in as a 200 level student. We have applied to JUPEB. The first set of JUPEB graduates were admitted in direct entry in 2004 and it rotates. By the time it comes around, we will be joining. A team of JUPEB has al­ready visited the university and we are expecting a feedback from them and I am convinced they are satis­fied with what they saw.

http://www.authorityngr.com/2016/04/Hezekiah-University--The-only-Nigerian-University-where-the-Vice-Chancellor-lectures/

ROYALD:
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If Imo state government will go back and take a good look in Orlu and Oguta and give this two cities what they need in terms of infrastructures we will not have Imo state as one city state.

Abagworo:
Owerri is not really an urban area in the real sense of it hence the poster might have expected it to be. It is a traditional town with great individuals who returned a lot of their capital intensive investments to their village. The town has large expanse of land but not a built up and layed out urban settlement like Orlu or Okigwe.

I agree with you. Please enlighten us the more!

Abagworo:
The level of work at the Concorde tunnel started 3 weeks ago as reported by "Rochas Pikin" on facebook. I'm impressed and urge the Governor to keep developing Imo quietly while ignoring the media attacks on his personality and my State Imo by election losers and our jealous neighbouring Igbo State.

What is that wall on that picture doing there can't it be removed??