Perpetual undergraduates: Situation becomes dire as medical students of the University of Abuja protest.

Medical students of the University of Abuja yesterday took over the entire street and avenue of the federal capital, including the office of the Minister of Education in protest, to drive home their message of getting there programme accredited or be transfered to another university.

Some of the students who spoke said they are ready to go to whichever university the Minister of education, professor Ruqayyatu Rufai, transfers them to, and that they were not confident in the university of Abuja VC’s promise that he would get the programme accredited by October adding that they are tired of being perpetual undergraduate.

Why will students be studying a 6-7 year course for more than 10 years and all of a sudden the students are to be sent home because the school management couldn’t get the government to accredit their course? Why wont such students go haywire?

This days with the way things are happening in our Nigerian universities, some students will grow gray hair before they graduate. How do one explain five-sets of medical students held on in 300 Level without going forward or backward.
It is no longer news that the University of Abuja is a glorified secondary school with teachers, headmaster and kotuma(chief-whip) whose major duty is to swing the students like pendulum without a hanging pole. It is no longer news that the students sits on plastic chairs which of-course is not enough to go round. It is no longer news that a single lecturer handles up to three(3) different courses due to shortage of lecturers, etc. What is news today is that over five-sets of medical students have been held on 300 Level without going forth nor back.

Even a simpleton will not appreciate been repeatedly toyed with. The University of Abuja ought to be one of the best universities in the country, it’s supposed to be the university that other African countries will use as a measure to check there own universities. For the mere fact that it is centered in the heart of the nation’s capital is enough to make it a master-piece of attraction but instead its one of the worst in the world.

The question is, do you blame graduates whom are called half-baked or you blame the government that call them half-baked?