The Middle Belt Forum, Kaduna State, has expressed dismay over an editorial by a media house discouraging the Federal Government from seeing the takeoff of the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia.
A statement issued by the Forum’s chairman, Luka Binniyat alleged that the motive behind the editorial is to discourage the Federal Government from approving the takeoff of the Federal University of Applied Sciences, Kachia.
“The Middle Belt and indeed, Southern Kaduna has powerful foes that can go to any extent to ensure we are tied to one place.
“If not so, is the Editorial not aware that a university is not merely a place of learning? That a university is an economy and a development hub of its own with accompanied value chains that could dramatically spark unprecedented prosperity to its area of location and environs?”
He added, “Well we have no issues whatsoever with the observations and facts churned out by the Editorial Board of Punch regarding the poor funding of Federal Universities and other associated matters raised in the Editorial, we feel that had the Editors been armed with the shocking marginalization that Southern Kaduna has suffered in allocation of federal institutions in Kaduna State, they would have written its Editorial from a rather sympathetic perspective.
“They would not have set out in that Editorial to discourage the Federal Government from concluding a development that has stirred so much joy and emotions among the people of SK and indeed all residents members of the Middle Belt in Kaduna State.”
The forum noted that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, who represents Zaria Federal Constituency of Kaduna state, secured the approval and funds for the establishment and immediate construction of four new tertiary institutions in Zaria town, including a university.
Binniyat stated that at the flag-off of the construction of one of the schools in Zaria, on the 15th of December 2024, Abbas announced to the media that the sum of N80 billion had been approved for the construction of the schools.
He said Southern Kaduna is a geo-socio/cultural zone made up of no less than 60 ethnic nationalities that made up of 12 LGAs out of the 23 LGAs of Kaduna State and wondered why an editorial condemned the creation of new federal universities when Zaria town, which is already saturated with 11 Federal Tertiary Schools, got additional four new ones at a go.
