In a bid to promote research that will address peculiar health and environmental challenges in the Niger Delta region, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), has promised to laiase with the Niger Delta University (NDU), Amassoma, Bayelsa State, to prioritise researches that seeks to provide solutions to issues plaguing the society.
Speaking while welcoming the University management, the NDDC Managing Director, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, assured that the commission was ready to provide the needed support to Universities in the Region.
Dr. Ogbuku disclosed revealed that the NDDC Executive Director Projects, Sir Victor Antai, would lead a team on a site visit to the university to articulate their needs, noting that they recently benefited from the Operation Light up the Niger Delta Programme of the Commission.
According to Ogbuku: “We are prepared to collaborate with Universities to provide solutions to the problems facing the Region. Let us invest in the area of research to help us to appropriately intervene in the lives of our people.
According to him, the work at the NDDC goes beyond building roads and bridges but also concerned about manpower development which remains the forte of Universities.
He further disclosed that their interventions are not limited only to building physical infrastructure but support researches from the Universities and that the Commission would equally welcome Universities research in the areas of erosion and flooding to help find endurable solutions and therefore challenged Universities to give comprehensive solutions needed.
“We want to collaborate with the NDU in the area of research and I challenge the university to go into research that will focus on ecological challenges, food production and herbal medicine.”
Responding, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Allen Agih, while describing the NDU as a manpower development centre for the Region, thanked the commission on its efforts in building the capacity of Universities in the Niger Delta region.
He, further noted that collaboration with the NDDC was imperative, given the lean resources available to the university to pursue its objective of positively impacting the Niger Delta region.
Also, Agih appealed for assistance in setting up an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centre and in providing accommodation for lecturers in the University campus, lamenting: “all our lecturers live outside the University.”
“We thank the NDDC management for the numerous projects executed in the university, including the on-going solar-powered street light project that has improved security and night life within the campus”, Agih stated.
