By Our Correspondent
One of Nigeria’s top ten universities in the latest ranking, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka is to spend N350 million in forest conservation and setting up a world class games reserve in the institution.
Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Charles Esimone, while interacting with the Director General of Nigeria Conservation Foundation, NCF, Dr. Joseph Onoja, who visited the university, said the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND, is also assisting in the funding of the project.
During Onoja’s visit, UNIZIK also signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with NCF for a partnership that would ensure proper conservation of the environment in the university.
Already, the NCF had assisted the university in planting 10000 trees in the university as part of efforts of the institution to maintain a healthy environment.
According to the Vice Chancellor some of the animals for the proposed zoo, including elephants, would soon be imported, while the other animals will be sourced from within Nigeria.
He said: “We have a masterplan which properly accommodates the zoo and spaces for tree planting. Before now people just built anyhow in the university, but I have established a unit different from the works department and its duty is to approve and monitor sites of building projects in the university.
“There are areas meant for building infrastructure and others for the forest reserve where the university has planned to set up the zoo and the animals will be kept in their natural habitat.
“In this university, we have forest reserves that you won’t find in any other part of the world. This is a natural endowment that had in the past been basterdized and destroyed.
“We came in with a mission to restore what had been lost and NCF came in to partner with us in that endeavor.
“In various part of the university where there had been massive deforestation, NCF and UNIZIK are making a statement that Nnamdi Azikiwe University will be at the forefront of this green revolution. “That the DG is physically present to be part of the inauguration is a testament of the importance of the project.
“When I assumed office as the VC, I set up an office on land resource management headed by an experienced professor and the whole idea is to conserve what were lost and to educate the people on the need to restore our forests that were degraded through human action”.
Professor Esimone said the university had also trained forest guards to man the forest to avoid encroachment by outsiders and even UNIZIK staff.
