UNN REGISTRAR'S OFFICE SET ABLAZE

By NBF News

Another fire incident has occurred at the University of Nigeria Registrar's office 24 hours after the Electrical Engineering Department building was set on fire by arsonists suspected to be responsible for the institution's serial inferno.

However, the fire was detected promptly and was stopped before wreaking much damage.

Eyewitness told Daily Sun that but for a stroke of divine intervention, the vice chancellor's administrative building renovated and furnished recently , housing the registrar's office would have been reduced to rubble.

The source further said the two sons of a lecturer who were passing through the area saw smoke billowing from the registrar's office and alerted their father, who promptly informed the security department about the fire.

Daily Sun learnt that before the university fire officials could arrive, about two wooden drawers containing valuable documents suspected to be certificates were burnt to ashes.

Last Monday night, the Electrical Engineering Department building was reduced to rubbles and multi-million naira worth of equipment and vital documents were destroyed when unknown arsonists set the building ablaze. This is the second time the electrical department building was set on fire. Daily Sun investigation showed that the serial fire incidents occurring in the university, was deliberate attempts by some disgruntled elements in and outside of the campus to distract the attention of the new vice chancellor from the efforts of his administration to reposition the university to become the best in Nigeria and one of the best in the world.

A staff of the social science department said: 'We are not happy about what is happening in this university in the past few days'. The staff, who pleaded anonymity told Daily Sun, that the perpetrators of the heinous acts would one day be caught and brought to book. 'You are asking me how I feel, I feel bad because the university is my own New Jerusalem. What is affecting the university as an entity or the vice chancellor affects me directly and indirectly' the staff posited.

In his reaction, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Bartho Okolo, who has been away in search of better deal for the institution described the incidents as unfortunate. 'Kassidy, you are asking for official comment. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say that those who are destroying while others are building have done well? However, I am optimistic that one day, the perpetrators of the acts will be rounded up', the vice chancellor said on phone.

Professor Okolo said security had been very tight in the institution but because human beings were not God, it would very difficult to read the mind of those who had bad intention for the university.