By AHMED KAIGAMA

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has established an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Centre at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ABTU) Bauchi.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the centre has 40 computers and an e-Library for remedial students in the university.

Alhaji Tukur Buba, Senior Procurement Officer, NPA said at the commissioning ceremony on Saturday in Bauchi that the gesture was to help the remedial students improve their knowledge of ICT.

He charged the institution and the students to maintain the facilities against any form of misuse and vandalism.

“Please and please, make good use of these facilities so that our unborn children can use them.

“The management of NPA is behind you, eager and anxious to see your success in all your endeavours and it wants these facilities to be used for uplifting education in this institution.

“I enjoin you once again to make good use of it, no vandalism; these days, people regard government property as nobody’s property but not this time around,” he said.

Buba also added that they should own the equipment as their personal property “because after you make use of them, your children and grandchildren will come and make use of them, maybe even with better technology,” he stated.

In a remark, Prof. Muhammed Abdulazeez, Vice Chancellor of the university, commended NPA forrescuing the institution by establishingthe ICT centre, saying that it would help the students reduce the search for physical books.

According to him, many students fail the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) mainly because of their lack of knowledge of ICT.

He said these would help the university transition from analog to digital.

“We have remedial students who are about writing UTME, most students fail not because they don’t know the answers but because they don’t have knowledge of ICT.

“This is an advantage to such students because they can practice using these facilities.

“I want to urge the directorate that all tests for remedial should now be CBT so that they will be conversant with ICT and upgrade their knowledge because these are UTME questions,” he said.

He also enjoined the students to take care of these facilities because, “if you destroy them, you are destroying our money and if you keep them, you’re indirectly keeping our money.

“Know that whatever you do to these systems, someone somewhere will do it to you,” he said

Abdulazeez declared that the institution targeted that not just the students of the university would benefit from the centre but students outside the university could also use the facilities.

“We’re trying to make sure that everybody in Nigeria has access to quality education and access to university education.”

On his part, the Director of Basic and Remedial Studies of ATBU, Prof. Hamma Sabo, said that the centre would have great impact on students.

“This is a digital laboratory. Library is very critical in the development of education.

“In fact, any academic institution without a library is completely academically irrelevant,” he said. (NAN)