The Vice Chancellor, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Professor Greg Nwakoby has said that the management of the institution is making every effort to checkmate the spate of road accidents claiming students’ lives along the major road leading to the Igbariam Campus of the school.
Professor Nwakoby, who disclosed this in an interview with Newsmen , in his Igbariam Campus office, noted that decisive steps have already been taken to ensure that the rising tragedy is permanently averted.
Our correspondent reports that the atmosphere around the Igbariam Campus of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University had become gloomy, and tense after three students of the university died in three separate auto crashes along the major road leading to the institution in a space of three days.
Two of those three tragic accidents involved commercial motorcycles, a means of conveyance that the students seemed to have found faster and most convenient given the distance separating the campus in Igbariam, Anambra East Local Government Area, from the main students’ resident area in Awkuzu, Oyi Local Government Area.
One of the victims of the fatal accident, which happened on Friday, November thirteenth, 2020, Miss Chinecherem Anyacho, from Amichi, Nnewi South Local Government Area, is said to be the only daughter of her parents.
Professor Nwakoby, who had already released a press statement noting that an immediate response would be taken to nip the ugly trend, stated that the Anambra State Commissioner of Works, Engineer Marcel Ifejiofor, and that of Transport, Mr. Afam Mbanefo, had followed him to the sites of the crashes, after which it was agreed that speed limit bumps be constructed to help checkmate over speeding, the major cause of the accidents.
He also noted that an official letter had been sent to Governor Willie Obiano to brief him on the development, stating that while private sectors are encouraged to invest in students’ accommodation in the university, three new hostels being constructed inside the school by the institution’s management would be ready next year to save the precarious situation of having the students come to school from far where their hostels are located.
In a telephone interview, the President of the Student Union Government at the Igbariam Campus of the university, Comrade Kizito Okemadu, who expressed sadness at the ugly circumstance, called on the state government to intervene urgently in the situation by providing buses to convey the students to and fro the school and to also put a ban on motorcycles plying the road.
