24th November, 2021
By Jethro Ibileke
Governor Godwin Obaseki has charged the newly appointed Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), HRM Orcivirigh Prof. James Ortese Iorzua (Ayatse Tor TIV), to leverage his over 40 years of academic and leadership experience to develop the institution.
The Edo State Governor gave the charge when he received the 10th Chancellor of the University who was on a courtesy visit at the Government House in Benin City.
The Governor noted that “University education in the post-COVID-19 world requires a rethinking of the system, and how it is organised. We see a university as a place for learning and dispatching knowledge via technology.
“The strategy used two or three decades ago for our university education might not be applicable today. But having someone like you to provide leadership for our own institution is commendable and significant.
“Hopefully, you will lead that stage of helping us rethink university education in Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 era.
“For the future university, we will be quite reliant and dependent on technology. The role of universities will become much more democratic in terms of getting to the grassroots, and helping to lift our people out of the level of poverty that we found ourselves today,” he noted.
Obaseki continued: “UNIBEN is our own institution because of the relevance of the university to the development of our state; the quality and quantum of human resources provided make it important to support the school to fill the gap the federal government cannot fill.
“We will continue to invest in the university, supporting some of the infrastructures in and around the school, assisting in resurfacing some of the internal roads in the institution and working on an investment to bring uninterrupted power supply for the institution.”
“For land grabbing, we will support the institution to get their land back as we will inaugurate the Committee for the Protection of Private Property (PPP) next week and some of the cases to be treated by the committee is the land grabbing issue facing the University of Benin,” the governor assured.
On his part, the Chancellor of UNIBEN assured that he will “support the very good works you have been doing to take the institution to a greater height and I commend you for your numerous supports for the University.
“I have been in the university system for some four decades and will use that experience and exposure, and make it available for the development of UNIBEN,” he added.