FUTO commences enumeration of illegal properties in varsity lands

The authorities of the Federal University of Technology Owerri, (FUTO) have commenced the enumeration of illegal properties erected in the institutions lands with à view of reclaiming the University territory.

Vice Chancellor of FUTO Professor Francis Eze who dropped the hints on Tuesday while briefing journalists said that the University authorities decided to erect perimeter fence to avoid further encroachment from the natives and land speculators.

He therefore appealed to the federal government to intervene on the incessant land encroachment by its host communities.

Thé Vice Chancellor said that the land encroachment had adversely affected expansion of facilities in the campus with some valuable properties lost to the invaders.

He expressed sadness that despite the payment of compensations to the host communities for their land acquired to establish the institution, the provision of jobs, offer of admissions to the indigenes as well as the discharge of her corporate social responsibilities to the host communities, the issue of land encroachment had remained unabated till date.

According to him, 500 acres of land belonging to the university had been earmarked for sale by land speculators.

He said that the university management had, despite lean resources, taken the bull by the horns by fence the entire campus, lamenting that rampant land excavation had exposed a bridge within the campus to possible collapse.

“Some of the indigenes of our host communities are making money by appropriating our land and selling same for pecuniary interest and if we want to develop new hostels, we cannot do so because some of them have built houses quite close to our hostels”.

“How can somebody come here to develop a water factory? We cannot allow this and we are appealing to the media to help us to tell the world of this. Some even go and forge papers to confuse the people to buy our land”.

Eze who alleged threats to his life and those of some senior academic staff of the university following their resistance to the land encroachment boasted that the nation’s 38 – year old Premier University of Technology (FUTO), apart from being the biggest federal government owned project in the state remains one of the foremost citadels of learning in the country.

Val Okara, Owerri