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From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
The Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo (FUHSO), Benue State, has held its 5th and 6th combined matriculation for 1,321 new students into its various faculties and academic programmes for the 2024/2025 and 2025/26 sessions.
Speaking at the event at the university’s campus, Otada in Otukpo Local Government Area of Benue State, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Francis Uba, congratulated the new students on their admission and enjoined them to work hard and imbibe the spirit of discipline to enable them excel in their academic pursuits.
In a breakdown of the newly admitted students for the two academic sessions, Prof Uba said a total of 259 students were admitted into the Faculty of Applied Science, with 644 admitted into the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, while 105 students were admitted into the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and 313 into the Faculty of Health Science and Technology.
He noted that the university management, having navigated through a season of siloed interpersonal relationships, a strained reputation, stagnated enrolment and moments of doubt, both from within and beyond the university community, has come together to embrace a unified vision centred on alignment and harmonious integration of purpose, motive and action.
According to him, “this alignment serves as the engine that transforms potential into kinetic progress, ideas into impactful realities, and vision into lived experience.”
He explained that when action aligns with motive and intention, transformation becomes not just a possibility but a cascade of inevitability, where clarity emerges, adding that the institution has regained its trust and sincerity as their commitment is now being recognised by students and parents.
He stated that “a university that operates in alignment transcends stagnation. Each challenge, be it low enrolment, public scepticism, or historical non-performance, can be reframed as an opportunity for renewal. Every lecture delivered with passion, every student supported with care, and every programme executed with integrity signals that we have learnt, adapted and now act with a unified purpose.
“Therefore, our faculty and staff must consciously strive to be a worthy model of emulation. Let our teaching, research and administrative practice echo the alignment of our motives with our founding purpose. Each decision, policy and interaction with students should reflect our renewed commitment to quality and integrity.”
The VC announced that before his assumption of office, the university had only a little over 500 students on campus, but that in the last six months of his leadership, the student population has grown to 2,200, with 1,642 fresh students gaining admission, while new programmes have also been established.
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He assured that within the next quarter of next year, an additional 22 programmes will be introduced.
He further enjoined the new students to cultivate good study habits, immerse themselves in learning and understanding, and strive for excellence.
Earlier in his remark, the pioneer Vice Chancellor of the university and guest lecturer at the occasion, Prof Chukwubuike Aghaji, maintained that the university should strive towards providing opportunities for manpower development and enhanced quality research.
Prof Aghaji, who titled his lecture “Transforming FUHSO into a foremost university in Africa”, insisted that the university should be an ICT-driven institution where every student has access to a computer to enhance their learning and research ability.
He charged the university to set a standard and maintain a tradition of excellence that, once built, nobody can change.
“Your curriculum should be first class, that can market students. The school should review its curriculum of all the departments and model it to the current global standards.
“The school should also come out with a cut-off for admission of students. They should be institutional records.
“Furthermore, the university should come out with a protocol for the use of antibiotics in Africa. They should set up a department for the monitoring of emerging medicine in Nigeria. We must introduce new emerging medicine into different departments. We must know new emerging challenges.
“There is abuse of antibiotic use in Africa. We are not using antibiotics very well. FUHSO should be in the vanguard of providing protocol for antibiotic usage,” he added.
