Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai today received stakeholders from southern Kaduna. He thanked the delegation, which included Air Commodore E.K. Jekada and Bishop George Dodo, Catholic Bishop of Zaria, for helping to stabilize and restore peace in the affected local government areas. Malam El-Rufai said he was delighted to personally thank the stakeholders for their role in upholding peace.
“I salute you for helping to uphold a common humanity, for keeping the voice of reason alive. It is voices like yours that are helping to anchor peace, upsetting the designs of people who think that relentless focus on ethnicity and religion is the best way to advance their personal agenda. We are determined not to allow anyone to profit from strife. Thank you for your contributions to the steady advance of peace.”
The governor announced that due to the marked improvement in the security situation, the government has decided to reopen all tertiary institutions in southern Kaduna. He directed the Commissioner of Finance and the Commissioner of Police to hasten the construction of a police base to protect the College of Education, Gidan-Waya. The governor, however, warned that the government will not tolerate the blocking of roads in the Godogodo axis or anywhere by youths, who use such roadblocks to commit murder and other crimes. He tasked all communities not to relent in protecting everyone that is schooling in, living in or passing through them.
Malam Nasir El-Rufai also announced that all tertiary institutions owned by the Kaduna State Government will henceforth operate a multi-campus structure. This new policy has been approved by the State Executive Council as a means to further expand access to higher education, make accreditation of courses more cost-effective and respond concretely to the desire by several communities to host tertiary institutions.
The government explained that a multi-campus structure will help to make the state’s tertiary institutions more inclusive and expand the range of courses that students can study by making most courses available in all campuses.
“Memo presented to the State Executive Council indicates that the government hopes that the various campuses spread across the state can over time evolve into fully-fledged universities in their own right. That is how the campuses of the University of California system and those of the University of London have evolved.
“This multi-campus policy will be implemented in a way that assigns at least one tertiary institution to each of the 23 local government areas. The laws of some of our institutions are already been amended to reflect this.”
The government reiterated a commitment to transform KASU into a world-class university in the long-term. Part of the transition to a multi-campus structure entails moving the main campus of KASU itself to a be purpose-built main facility behind the NTI in Rigachikun.
