The authorities of the University of Benin on Thursday shut down academic activities in the institution indefinitely.

The university in a statement by its Public Relations Officer, Dr Benedicta Ehanire, attributed the decision to the refusal of the students to shift grounds on their demands.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the students on Wednesday took to the streets, blocking the ever-busy Benin-Ore Highway, to protest weeks of power outages on campus.

The students, who had two weeks until their first-semester examination, said the situation was severely affecting their preparation.

The students also called for a downward review of transport fares by the UNIBEN shuttle service, which was increased with effect from July 1.

NAN reports that the university was thrown into a blackout by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) following the inability to reach an agreement over contentious electricity billings.

The monthly bill was said to have jumped from about N80 million to between N200 and N280 million, forcing the university to resort to power generators as well as rationalisation of power on the two campuses and hostels.

When a NAN correspondent spoke with the protesting students amidst heavy rainfall, they were hellbent on continuing the rampage unless their demands are met.

But in the notice of closure made available to NAN, Ehanire described the students’ demand for 24-hour supply of electricity as unrealistic.

“Following the insistence of students of the University of Benin to shift grounds on their demands for twenty-four hours supply of electricity and more, considered unrealistic by the University’s Senate, the University has shut down academic activities indefinitely.

“Students are to vacate the hostels immediately while all the relevant units of the University are to take note and comply.

“However, non-teaching staff and staff on essential duties are not affected by the shutdown,” said the university’s spokesperson.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has released the results of candidates who participated in the supplementary Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), conducted between Friday, June 21st and Saturday, June 22nd, 2024.

The supplementary examination was conducted for 28,835 candidates who were unable to be biometrically verified during the main 2024 UTME and were unable to take their examination.

JAMB’s spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, said similarly that the other categories of candidates were those suspected to have been involved in examination malpractices during the main UTME but were given a second chance to sit the examination.

Benjamin said, “The exercise, which recorded a huge success nationwide, was marked by heightened security measures put in place by the Board to preclude any instance of examination infractions. As such, some nefarious characters, who had attempted to impersonate bona fide candidates were apprehended and handed over to law enforcement agencies for further investigation and prosecution.

“The Board would continue to ensure that no candidate benefits from any acts of infractions through the deployment of state-of-the-art technology before, during and after its examinations.

“Candidates are, therefore, urged in their interest to refrain from engaging in any form of irregularities during their examinations. They are also enjoined to desist from soliciting score upgrades from fraudsters or engaging in the mutilation of their result sheets while trying to generate fake result sheets with higher scores.

“To check their supplementary UTME results, candidates are to send UTMERESULT to either 55019 or 66019 through the same phone number they had used to generate their profile codes at the start of registration.”

The Oyo State Government on Monday gave its approval for the recruitment of 7,000 secondary school teachers.

“Governor Seyi Makinde has approved the recruitment of 7,000 secondary school teachers by the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM),” OYSG Feedback wrote on X.

It stated that more details about the recruitment process, including how to apply, will be publicised by TESCOM soon.

OYSG Feedback added that this is the second recruitment by TESCOM after about 5,000 teachers were employed in 2021 to meet the manpower shortage in the secondary education sector in Oyo state.

NELFUND is set to publish full list of Institutions with complete data submissions for student verification 24th June 2024.

The management of Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has announced that the full list of institutions that have submitted their complete student data, as requested by the agency, for upload onto the NELFUND Student Verification System (SVS) portal will be published on the 24th of June, 2024.

This list of both Federal and State owned institutions will be published to ensure transparency and to encourage due access and participation in the scheme, of both undergraduate applicants, and tertiary institutions in this critical exercise.

It is commendable that many federal institutions have already completed the exercise having been the first wave , whilst the process of uploading the data to NELFUND SVS is currently ongoing for the state owned institutions.

In order for applicants to be able to access the fund, the individual’s details must feature in institution’s submitted data set sent to the NELFUND SVS, where automatic applicant verification can then occur seamlessly.

Failure to have this verification would invalidate the application process and disadvantage applicants.

It is therefore critical that the information provided by the tertiary institutions is not only complete, but also accurate.

The correlation or matching of JAMB numbers, Matriculation numbers and Admission numbers as well as applicants full names and dates of birth, will support the evaluation process.Applicants are urged to enter their data into the portal accurately when applying, and to ensure that their email addresses are entered without error.

NELFUND has expressed its delight in the cooperation it has recieved from the tertiary institutions, at both state and federal level across the nation.

Press Release

Signed:Nasir Ayitogo Head, Media and Public RelationsNigerian EducationLoan Fund (NELFUND)