Follow Us on Google
Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Two groups from the host community of the National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN), Aba, have pledged to partner the school to reverse its many years of neglect and improve the state of infrastructure at the indigenous language development centre.
The groups, Akumaimo Indigenous Forum and Onuoru Asaa Obikabia, gave the assurance when they paid separate visits to the Executive Director of the Institute, Prof. Obiajulu Emejulu and members of his management.
Chief Rowland Otete, Chairman of Akumaimo Indigenous Forum, who led the delegation, said his group would support NINLAN in its bid to solve the myriad of hurdles it was facing to enable improve its academic and physical infrastructure.
He said the forum would set a machinery in motion to engage federal and state political office holders from Obingwa Local Government Area, where NINLAN is sited, with a view to urging them to actively influence the upgrade of the physical and academic status of the institute.
Otete assured Prof.Emejulu that they would get the National Assembly and other politicians from their area to be practically committed to helping the institute get out of its present financial doldrums, and ensure its academic programmes were approved.
“We don’t want these bushes to remain here, the land was not given for cultivation of crops or for growth of vegetation, but for academic purpose,” he said.
Leader of Onuoru Asaa group, the land donors, Chief Friday Nwakamma said it was necessary to interface with the Institute so that both would exist in peace and the land donors would enjoy more benefits, as a result of the existence of the school in their community.
Prof. Emejulu intimated them with the many challenges the institute had been facing such as non-grant of takeoff fund at its inception and difficulty in getting the National Universities Commission to permit the Institute to run degree programmes as enshrined in its Act and the ceding of the Institute to the UNN for seven years.
